Neil Drinnan's captivating second novel is a meditation on will and chaos. Doc and Dixon are semipartnered men who share a very special house, one of the finest examples of art deco in Melbourne. The builder of this 1924 gem was rumored to have thrown himself from the high turret window after the stock market crash. Does this explain the creepy feeling in the turret rooms? Or the ghostly sightings? Or the ease with which Doc, Dixon, and their roommate, Dung, a Vietnamese-born artist, manage to turn the tables on a gay basher who had attacked Dung? Although Doc is the hub of the household--the principal wage-earner, the father figure--he is being blackmailed by a former patient, cannot engage more than the casual sexual attention of Dixon, and now must contend with a handsome new houseboy, as well as the cover-up of a death. Briskly written, with some of the most closely observed domestic scenes in gay fiction today, Pussy's Bow more than lives up to the promise of Drinnan's debut, Glove Puppet, and may exceed, in some ways, his remarkable follow-up, Quill. --Regina Marler.