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The Trap
Sydney, 1942: a city in wartime. As nightclubs are raided the sly-grog trade thrives and public toilets become the hunting grounds for corrupt police running an entrapment scheme. As journalists, lawyers and establishment figures close in on this scandal, figures from the city's demi-monde must reckon with how to survive in dangerous times.
334 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 31, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 8, 2026
This was a great read! The language richly immerses you in a gritty 1940s Sydney, which is just as sloven as it is beautiful - the dirtiness of the night make lights glimmer more brightly on the harbour, and the cleansing of storm waves against the docks offer a snippet of reprieve to the thick inescapable heat that encases its characters.
The absence of quotation marks for speech deepens a sometimes indistinguishable blend of thoughts and actions, with readers experiencing the stumbling desperation of poverty and fearful vigilance of those who seek to violently punish them for simply existing.
Through the instability of wartime Sydney, McGregor examines the human desire to crush whatever disturbs us from within. Societal outcasts Ray and Iris’ ‘deviant’ sexual behaviour, raises a mirror to police officers Tom and Lilian who are confronted with their own uncomfortable relationship with sex. She uses true history as
For Tom, this spirals into the creation of a ‘trap’ with a fellow officer; the planned pouncing of random men in public bathrooms who in their minds, have attempted to seduce them. The equivalent of hitting a piñata in the dark, Carney seeks a way to quash the discomfort of the desires he recognises in himself through these violent assaults and abuse of power in the justice system. In this spree of arrests, he finds a vicious expression for his anger towards himself being belittled by those in the force, and the religious guilt for his intrigue for the sex he punishes.
Lilian, who was raped and forced to bear a child in her youth has in a way, de-sexed herself through her career as a police-woman. Denying any relationships or marriage, and through deliberate dressing to hide her feminine features, her identity is morphed into something void. She is painfully focused on punishing Iris, not for her crime of sly-grogging, but for the fact that she shares a bed with another woman. She rallies for a change in the law that will allow her to ensnare her for the deviancy she believes is infectious to the innocent young women of Sydney. Iris is indeed threatening to her, in the way she can exist wholly within herself, her sexuality, independent from the men that Lilian was forced to sacrifice everything for. Her life, body and identity, has been at first abused, and then made invisible by them. In her adaptation of becoming the least ‘offensive’ self to society, she has become unrecognisable in the patriarchal structure; a mother devoid of a husband, and a woman devoid of her feminine appearance and sexuality.
The absence of quotation marks for speech deepens a sometimes indistinguishable blend of thoughts and actions, with readers experiencing the stumbling desperation of poverty and fearful vigilance of those who seek to violently punish them for simply existing.
Through the instability of wartime Sydney, McGregor examines the human desire to crush whatever disturbs us from within. Societal outcasts Ray and Iris’ ‘deviant’ sexual behaviour, raises a mirror to police officers Tom and Lilian who are confronted with their own uncomfortable relationship with sex. She uses true history as
For Tom, this spirals into the creation of a ‘trap’ with a fellow officer; the planned pouncing of random men in public bathrooms who in their minds, have attempted to seduce them. The equivalent of hitting a piñata in the dark, Carney seeks a way to quash the discomfort of the desires he recognises in himself through these violent assaults and abuse of power in the justice system. In this spree of arrests, he finds a vicious expression for his anger towards himself being belittled by those in the force, and the religious guilt for his intrigue for the sex he punishes.
Lilian, who was raped and forced to bear a child in her youth has in a way, de-sexed herself through her career as a police-woman. Denying any relationships or marriage, and through deliberate dressing to hide her feminine features, her identity is morphed into something void. She is painfully focused on punishing Iris, not for her crime of sly-grogging, but for the fact that she shares a bed with another woman. She rallies for a change in the law that will allow her to ensnare her for the deviancy she believes is infectious to the innocent young women of Sydney. Iris is indeed threatening to her, in the way she can exist wholly within herself, her sexuality, independent from the men that Lilian was forced to sacrifice everything for. Her life, body and identity, has been at first abused, and then made invisible by them. In her adaptation of becoming the least ‘offensive’ self to society, she has become unrecognisable in the patriarchal structure; a mother devoid of a husband, and a woman devoid of her feminine appearance and sexuality.
June 2, 2026
3.5 stars. I loved that Iris popped up again; nasty old law enforcers mostly unsympathetic characters but human to the end.
June 8, 2026
Well researched with a tale that is topical with the amplification of LGBTIQA+ vilification and intolerance in Australia, but particularly in places around the world like the United States. McGregor’s tale exposes just how wrong - and pointless and harmful - intolerance and prejudice is when the LGBTIQA+ community just want to love, and be loved.
May 7, 2026
Fiona Kelly McGregor's previous novel Iris gave us a real-life historical rogue to add to Australia's queer pantheon, the story of Iris Webber, charged with murder in 1937 Sydney and even more notorious for her womanising. The Trap picks up half a decade later. Now, Australia is at war and the streets, which fall to pitch black during the night-time brown outs, are full of American GIs. Despite the change of times, people are still getting by however they can, a variety of odd-jobs like sex work, lurks, and sly grog, as Ray Sayles is at the beginning of The Trap. Former dancer and club-runner, we met Ray previously as the drag queen Black Ada in Iris. Read more on my blog
June 14, 2026
The NSW gay-hate crime inquiry examined several historical deaths that took place at gay beats, very often public toilets. Such analysis was necessarily sterile, but McGregor’s novel puts the mysteries of queer cruising and entrapment into visceral focus. Wartime Sydney, 1942. In the half-light of brownouts, the city’s queers are prone to a nexus of ambitious police, toothless reporters and corrupt legal eagles. McGregor follows the fortunes of black, queer nightclub manager Ray Sayles, entrapped by cops in a cruel sting that runs right to the very top of the force, the media and the judiciary. The raw blend of history and sexual politics makes this startlingly familiar.
June 11, 2026
This book is a sequel to 'Iris' with some of the same characters. This one is set several years later, during WWII, and is based around a notorious scandal where police were falsely accusing men who were using public lavatories of perversion. The setting in the dark of Woolloomooloo and into the city during war time brownouts emphasises the darkness of the lives the poverty-stricken people of the area were living, getting by on sly-grogging and their wits while avoiding the police. A great read.
July 6, 2026
Fiona Kelly McGregor is doing such excellent work here.
I just adored Iris and was so excited to delve back into gritty Sydney in all its glory.
I found this one a bit harder to click with, due to less time with the underdogs and more time with the thugs in power possibly. But there’s so much love and work here.
FKM really does capture the time and forces you to look beyond the binary of victim and perpetrator.
I just adored Iris and was so excited to delve back into gritty Sydney in all its glory.
I found this one a bit harder to click with, due to less time with the underdogs and more time with the thugs in power possibly. But there’s so much love and work here.
FKM really does capture the time and forces you to look beyond the binary of victim and perpetrator.
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June 7, 2026wonderful
July 2, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews