Signal Loss

Colin McPhillamy narrates the seventh Inspector Challis police procedural. Two bodies in a burned car spark an investigation into a local drug ring in the Mornington Peninsula area of Australia, and a new sex crime unit tackles an increasingly elusive serial rapist. McPhillamy's steady delivery of the narrative contrasts wonderfully with the eclectic cast of lively characters whom he portrays with surprising variety in accent and inflection. The story itself tends to the dry side but reflects a realistic interaction between disparate police departments as they work together to achieve their goals. McPhillamy imbues dark and violent scenes with appropriate gravitas and amplifies the gallows humor perfectly. Despite its being the seventh book, new listeners will find the audiobook accessible. J.M.M. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 9, 2017
Early in Ned Kelly Award–winner Disher’s excellent seventh Hal Challis investigation (after 2012’s Whispering Death), a pair of hit men from Sydney execute a fencer of stolen property who has the bad luck to spot them in the act of disposing of a body in the rural peninsula south of Melbourne. Soon afterward, the killers unwittingly drive into the path of a wildfire and are burned to death. In the same area, an epidemic of meth-related “ice crimes” preoccupies Challis, who’s also working on a rash of thefts. Meanwhile, Senior Sergeant Coolidge, from a task force in Melbourne, mounts an operation on drug trafficking. And Challis’s girlfriend, Ellen Destry, who heads the local sex crimes unit, investigates a possible serial rapist. The story’s momentum never slows as Disher weaves these strands together with consummate skill and lyrical language (“The room was a hot, stale cave deep inside the police station and had never witnessed anything but loss and hopelessness”). This is a searing commentary on the meth crisis and its tremendous toll on users and communities alike.