As many times as is necessary". This is both the ideal characteristic of the typical masculine detective and it shows us that Claudia may be a woman but in the text, she is expressed with the typical characteristics of a male detective. Day is creating a complex character and an interesting voice to express the flexibility and multifariousness of women in today's society.
Day has created the character of personified Sydney as being guiltless, yet it is secretly corrupt. Her narration is full of Australian colloquialisms such as "mate" and idioms such as "hair of the dog". She also uses Australian slang such as "old girls" and "old blokes". The effect of this reinforces the Australian bases of her perspective. The voice of Sydney gives the city an unstable nature where the city seems to have a life of its own. This is shown in the quote "Nothing is ever still in this city, not even the buildings. Whilst one tumbles to the grown, another climbs into the sky". This shows that the city cannot be trusted; that at any time it can explode and change completely. .
Day's narrative includes social commentary about Sydney and its society. Claudia makes comparisons between her home city and American ones "Sydney was like san Francisco in many ways except that in Sydney the weirdo's didn't carry guns". This shows that although Sydney doesn't display violence and criminality, this may in fact lead to a spread of crime under the shadow of darkness. The personification of Sydney in "the city was highly strung" adds to creating the voice of Sydney being complicated and multifaceted just like a person. The city's voice challenges appearance versus reality where the reader is lead to question what lies behind the facades, suggesting to not always believing what is given to us.
Harry Lavender is both very self-absorbed and self-obsessed.