Dirty Work is a 1987 novel by New Zealand author Nigel Cox.

Cox's second novel (after his debut, Waiting for Einstein), Dirty Work is set in Wellington City, New Zealand, in the mid-1980s. The book revolves around the lives of staff and guests in the Happy World, a low-rent hotel, and the conflict between the hotel owner, Hendrick van Eesen ('Hendy'), and his newly hired shift manager, Gina Tully.

Dirty Work (Cox novel)

The novel won the Bucklands Memorial Literary Prize shortly after its release, and was also optioned for film.

Dirty Work (Cox novel)

In 2006, the book was re-published by Victoria University Press, based in Wellington.

Dirty Work (Cox novel)

Trivia

A manuscript written by one of the book's main characters, entitled "Tarzan of the Apes", has a plotline closely resembling that of Cox's fourth novel, Tarzan Presley, published in 2002.

Bibliography

Nigel Cox, Dirty Work, Victoria University Press: Wellington, NZ, 2006.

External links

Victoria University Press Official publishers' website.

20th-century New Zealand novels

1987 novels

Novels set in New Zealand

Novels set in hotels

Wellington in fiction