It's been five long years since violence erupted between young migrants and local police in Melbourne's inner west. A police-led trip to hike the Kokoda Trail hopes to rebuild relationships in the community, but as training gets underway, fresh allegations of racial profiling have everyone on a knife-edge.
For wannabe rapper Ali, pride is hard to come by in the commission towers as both gentrification and his best friend's court date creep closer.
Classmate Tyler's anger - at his dysfunctional family, and a world that denies his dreams - is close to ignition, and the way out is dangerously narrow.
Young and idealistic teacher Anna's life is in disarray, but she knows she has to take a stand against the school system that's failing her students.
And Paul, a cop new to the beat, quickly realises that it'll take a lot more than community policing to repair the mutual mistrust with local youth.
From the vial-studded stairs of the high-rises to the melting pot classrooms of secondary schools, to the mud-sucking jungle of Kokoda, No Church in the Wild is a deeply researched, richly imagined novel that interrogates the jaggedness of contemporary Australian society and the prejudices that still underpin it.
