The Graduate

Popular children’s author Rebecca Lim brings a stark and unflinching perspective to crime fiction with The Graduate, her debut novel in the genre. It interrogates abuses of power, racism and misogyny in the workplace, and the human capacity for cruelty.

Fei Fei Chou wants to prove herself in her new job at a prestigious law firm. She wants to prove she’s there because she has earned her place, not because she’s a ‘diversity hire’ or because her boss has a fetish for Asian women. Fei is determined to take revenge on an unidentified man who kidnapped and raped three girls from her school 30 years ago. The only clues she has to go on are from her communication with one of the victims, Hailey, and her memory of seeing the word ‘Paukeaho’ on a box, which led her to a mysterious cattle station in central Queensland whose accounts were handled by the law firm for which she now works. Newly hired as a graduate, Fei will use her position however she can to access the firm’s records and connections – and uncover the rapist’s identity.

Set in the heart of Melbourne, The Graduate is a gritty and brutal legal thriller that is also a woman’s story of exorcising her demons from a traumatic experience. Fei is an admirable protagonist, beginning as an insecure and meek graduate, unsure where to begin in her quest for revenge and if she is even capable of it. But her anger grows and she becomes furious at the trauma she and many young girls have gone through, the injustices that go unchecked, and the blatant prejudice she confronts at work every day. As you learn just how personal these crimes really are to Fei, she grows into a woman confident in her own voice and unwavering in her mission for revenge.