Peter Corris: Casino

Another satisfying Cliff Hardy PI story
Cliff Hardy is a hard-boiled detective with a love for Sydney, my old hometown. He is a private investigator who ekes out a living on minor, normally low-paying, cases. Hardy is a borderline alcoholic, drives an old Falcon with almost bald tires, and always seems to have luck in seducing the ladies - but his relationships don't last long.

Cliff is really down on his heels when he is approached by the manager of a new casino in Sydney to take up a 12-month contract to run their security. Hardy turns down the contract because he feels he is far too independent to knuckle down to a full-time job with big responsibilities. He recommends one of his friends Scott Galvani who would be a perfect fit for such a job.

A few weeks into the job Galvani is murdered and leaves behind a young family. Hardy is devastated and after police indifference in finding the killer he decides to investigate himself. To do so he takes the security job for a short time while a replacement can move from the US so that he can work out what may have happened. There he meets and has a short relationship with attractive but unpredictable Vita Drewe. Things get increasingly dangerous as he finds out more about what Galvani had uncovered.

This is #18 in Peter Corris's excellent series about Cliff Hardy which he has written over the last 35 years. They are all satisfying light thrillers and I plan to keep reading more in the series when I need a break from my normal diet of heavier thrillers and historical literary fiction.

Peter Corris: The Dying Trade

Cliff Hardy #1 - a hard boiled detective with a love for Sydney
This is the first book by Peter Corris, published in 1980, about a private detective with a love and understanding of the best and worst parts of Sydney. I have read a couple of the remarkable 40 books in the series but came back to #1 to get a better understanding of Hardy's remarkable character.

Cliff Hardy is ex-army, and an insurance investigator turned private investigator. He ekes out a living on minor, normally low paying, cases and has a love-hate relationship with his time and place. He tends to get drawn into cases involving people he deplores, especially those with wealth and connections. He lives on the edge of Glebe near the greyhound stadium and his description of Glebe is very evocative to me - "Glebe is one of those places where if  you can't see a pub by looking both ways down the street then you must be standing outside one". Hardy is a borderline alcoholic, drives an old Falcon with almost bald tires, a heavy smoker and always seems to have luck in seducing the ladies.

In this first book Hardy is approached by a very rich man. Bryn Gutteridge to investigate threats made to his twin sister Susan who is in a private sanitorium. Soon Hardy gets drawn into the world of a powerful and disjointed family and after an initial frosty introduction is also surprisingly also hired by Bryn's beautiful young and rich widowed stepmother, Ailsa. The plot is action-packed but some parts a bit unbelievable with car bombings, torture, attempted hit and runs, and protection of an escaped prisoner, all interlaced into a tale of a fractured but very wealthy family.

This was a good introduction to the series but the introduction to Cliff Hardy was what made it work for me. So now I have a big job ahead of me to read some or all of the remaining books in this outstanding Australian series.

Peter Corris: Silent Kill

Click to see in Amazon

Looking forward to reading more Cliff Hardy adventures
I am an Aussie reviewer with a penchant for thrillers and I must confess that I have never read any books by Peter Corris "The Godfather of Australian crime fiction" featuring private investigator Cliff Hardy. After this interesting introduction to Hardy's fascinating character I have a big task ahead of me as Corris has written 39 books in the series over the last 30 years.

Cliff Hardy is happy to get some new business when he is asked to join a country-wide tour by political firebrand and whistleblower Rory O'Hara, who is just leaving hospital after recovering from serious injuries from a deliberate hit-and-run accident. O'Hara has collected a number of enemies from his activities and Hardy's job is to find out if any of O'Hara's entourage of personal, PR, IT and medical support hangers-on have any connection with the accident. As is usual (I am told) in Hardy's adventures there are a couple of attractive females around to spice up the action.

The tour has only been going a couple of days when Hardy's job implodes when the tour ends in disaster when one of the entourage kills O'Hara's nurse and disappears. That could have been the end of the job but the nurse's wealthy brother hires Cliff to find the killer. This takes him on a search around Australia, including Darwin and Canberra to track down the killer and gets him involved with the outer reaches of the intelligence community. His search is aided by an interesting "alliance" with beautiful Penelope Marinos, O'Hara's former PA.

While others have said that this was not one of the most notable of Hardy's adventures, I loved the character and found the book was well written and easy reading with just enough action to keep my attention. I have been looking for this kind of series to read from time-to-time as interludes from more serious fiction, so I am looking for advice about which of many books in the series I should read next.