'Robert Newton is a Melbourne-based firefighter and author. Mr Romanov’s Garden in the Sky (Penguin, 218pp, $17.99) begins as a gritty reimagining of his experience 25 years ago when called to an emergency in a Melbourne housing commission tower. The sight of a small girl in pyjamas waiting beside her drug-overdosed mother has haunted him since, and is now re-created in 13-year-old Lexie.' (Introduction)