Comeback

October 15, 2012
Now that Cliff Hardy has his PI license back in Ned Kelly Award–winner Corris’s well-crafted 37th book featuring the Sydney detective (after 2012’s Follow the Money), Hardy has to determine whether he can adapt to today’s world or whether modern search engines and telecommunications have rendered him obsolete. His first test comes when an up-and-coming actor asks for Hardy’s assistance with a stalker. In short order, Hardy finds himself with a dead client, a growing list of suspects, and questions for which no happy answers exist. In the end, technology matters less than personal insight, and while the aging Hardy may lack technical expertise, he understands people. Where Hardy may worry that a hiatus has eroded his skills, Corris continues to demonstrate that his prose is in no way handicapped by the eroding waves of time or by the encroachment of advancing technology on beloved plot contrivances.

January 1, 2013

Veteran PI Cliff Hardy, semiretired after past indiscretions, is back in the game and has been hired by bit actor Bobby Forrest, who is being stalked by a former lover. Hardy is shocked when his client is murdered. Subsequently, Hardy's client's dad, a tough guy with plenty of enemies, hires the PI to find his son's killer. With motives blurring at this point, Hardy encounters more dead ends and dead bodies before he stumbles into a situation he hadn't expected. Hardy may be a bit slow and still learning the tricks of newest technology, but he still has the tenacity required to find out who killed Bobby. VERDICT Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award winner Corris serves up Australian hard-boiled crime in the latest entry (after Follow the Money) in his long-running series. Spare prose, clean structure, and a steady momentum make the pages fly by. Corris provides enough background information to make it easy for new readers to jump in.

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