Are people who work at night and sleep by day a different species from the rest of us? This novel, which happens mainly in the dark, is the story of Danny: a night person.

In the summer of 1974, life was sweet for Danny. He had almost everything a young printer could desire: a well-paid job (on the nightshift, of course), an amateur blues band for fooling around at weekends, and a girlfriend who was everything he'd ever dreamed of - except that she was a day person.

His main problem in life, he thought, was finding hot food at midnight, when he had a half-hour break, but all the shops were closed. So when the Midnight Deli opened near the newspaper where he worked, Danny and his friend Bernie were its first customers. Danny was intrigued by Sylvia, the young woman who served him, but his attempts to befriend her were discouraged by her uncle Stavros, the manager of the deli. Sylvia was supposed to be engaged to a cousin back in Cyprus, and no rumours were permitted to sully her virtue.

Gradually Danny was drawn into Sylvia's world, impelled by an attraction to her which he didn't understand and would hardly admit to himself. Sylvia's family had a desperation that Danny's suburban upbringing had totally lacked. People who crossed the Midnight Deli tended to die in mysterious circumstances. Danny's friends advised him not to get involved, but his fascination with Sylvia kept pulling him onward, to an bizarre but almost believable ending.

Midnight Deli paints a picture of Melbourne in the 1970s, when the city closed down after dark, when Anglo-Australians were struggling to come to terms with an influx of determined migrants, and when the future seemed limitless.

Moods change constantly in this book, a little like a blues song: the sad, the sexy, the idyllic, the gruesome - but the underlying feeling is one of wry humour, ranging from sardonic (Simone telling Danny what's wrong with blues) to ridiculous (hunting for musical Africans on the streets of Melbourne).

Midnight Deli grapples with some of the most serious intellectual issues of our day. Cultural icons such as meat pies, classic Australian cars, famous explorers, restaurant customs, kitchen decoration, Melbourne drivers, and the Australian desert are examined with a jaundiced eye. Pride is shattered, reputations ruined, and myths undermined.