Predicament is ''a powerful and disturbing account of the psychological fantasy world of adolescence with the familiar small-town setting'' of Morrieson's writing, so is a coming-of-age novel and a crime comedy. Naïve teenager Cedric Williamson is involved with two older criminally inclined misfits in photographing and blackmailing amorous couples, and ends up an accomplice to murder. It is set in a 1930s Taranaki town similar to Morrieson's Hawera.