Strong Stand-Alone from Garry Disher, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS (Australia)

Australian author Garry Disher now has more than 50 books to his credit, but is not yet well known in America. Thanks to Soho Crime, his two crime series—the gritty yet often tender Hal Challis books and very very dark "noir" of the Wyatt series—have mostly traveled to the United States. In July, Soho Crime (the crime fiction imprint of Soho Press) brought out a stand-alone from this author: UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS.

The book's closer in tone to the Hal Challis series than to the Wyatt books. Detective Alan Auhl, now an acting sergeant, is much older than most of the force and has been pulled back into action to tackle the cold cases. He is clearly wounded, himself. His former wife sometimes visits, but not always to share affection with him; in addition, Auhl owns a boarding house that caters to people with hard-luck stories yet decent hearts, among them an abused woman named Neve and her young daughter Pia, still being emotionally strangled by their ties to Pia's father. While Auhl struggles to help Neve and Pia find a position of strength, he's also tangled up in the cold case of John Elphick, whose daughters insist he was murdered, and with a newly discovered body that clearly dates back to a much earlier death, as well as a murderous doctor—and maybe it's just as well he's so busy. Otherwise he'd drown in the grief and angst of his boarders.

The delight of Disher's investigation novels is the depth he unfolds in his investigators, and UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS is a great example -- and also, for that reason, a good starter if you haven't yet read any of this Down-Under author. Here's a sample:

As the evening deepened, Auhl brooded. Men like Kelso, Fanning—Alec Neill. Their assumptions,  cronyism, power, sense of entitlement. Pre-emptive strike kinds of men: they seized the advantage while the rest of the world was thinking things through. Like Neill with his accusations against his wife,  thought Auhl. And as soon as we move against him he'll surround himself with lawyers and colleagues. ... Quite suddenly, a deeper unease settled into Auhl. Saturday morning. Janine Neill, pale, dizzy, uncoordinated. She had speculated blithely that Neill might shoot her or push her off a rock, but what if he'd poisoned her? Surely he couldn't be that arrogant? But he'd succeeded three times before Maybe he thought he was untouchable. ... [Auhl] dressed in dark clothing, backed his elderly Saab out of the garage and headed across to East Melbourne, heart jumpy and mouth dry.

Like Karen Slaughter, Tucker Coe (a Westlake nom de plume), or Louise Penny, Disher gives us an investigator whose sense of his own belonging to the world depends on taking action against the cruel, malicious, and criminal. Thanks to his deep experience and careful craft, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS is one of the most satisfying mysteries of 2019.

[More Disher reviews here.]

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Blood Lust and Crime Solving, in HANGMAN from Jack Heath

Jack Heath (a pen name) is an Australian writer of a lot of books for kids -- and HANGMAN is the exception to his routine, a most-definitely-for-adults thriller that steps onto the stage often occupied by dark, frightening criminals like Dexter, or Garry Disher's Wyatt.  Except --

Except that FBI consultant Timothy Blake, who's been slaking his peculiar thirst with a deal that keeps him solving crimes for the officials in his life, is struggling to deal with a crime-solving partner for the first time, a woman who works for the FBI as a professional. When he discovers how easily he connects with this other crime solver (who has no idea of his dirty deal, or his tastes), he's caught in the classic really-shouldn't-bite-that-pretty neck dilemma of many a vampire in far more romantic situations.

And with that thread, Jack Heath has formed the triangle of forces working on and in his protagonist: a hunger for human flesh, a mind well shaped to investigation and intuitive grasp of crime, and a heart that's unexpectedly pushing into his affairs.

There are many "ugh" moments in this crime novel -- made worthwhile by Blake's first-person narrative and his battles to both stay alive and in some way stay on the right side of his own blood-drawn lines:

An hour later the bones and tendons have dissolved. I pick up a twisted wire coathanger and dip the hook into the acid. After a bit of fumbling, I've found the plug and pulled it out. ...

As I watch the dead man disappear down the plughole in a grey-brown whirlpool, like the Ambulance Killer before him, I feel like I should say something. A brief eulogy. A few kind words.

But when I eventually get caught and executed, no one will say anything nice about me.

Obviously this book won't suit all tastes. But I found it compelling, found myself hoping Blake could redeem his life, or his ways, or at least his investigation. If you often read the dark side, try HANGMAN. Jack Heath is well worth reading.

And this quirky offering comes from Hanover Square Press, home of an astoundingly wide range of innovative crime fiction.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Brief Mention: DOMINIC, sequel to Hollow Man, by Mark Pryor

Mark Pryor is British by birth and bucked the author trend by moving to Austin, Texas, to become an assistant district attorney. His Hugo Marston series, apparently now on long pause, is set in Europe and delves into human love and loyalties, with a whiff of the paranormal that evil can call forth.

I found his stand-alone crime novel Hollow Man to be interesting -- it's in the Dexter line, and also similar to Garry Disher's Wyatt series, as the protagonist is a psychopath. Unlike Disher's Wyatt, however, Pryor's charming criminal Dominic -- himself an Englishman and prosecutor -- shows no inner sense of longing for an emotional life. Love leaves him cold ... well, not physically, but he won't be making any genuine self-sacrifice for the lady who attracts him. And again unlike the Marston series, this one is set in Texas. Dark, dark Texas.

Pryor then created a sequel after all, which was released last week: DOMINIC. This time, to add to the puzzle of Dominic's criminality and manipulations, there's a lady of interest involved who is nearly as chilly-hearted as the psychopath protagonist ... a lady in a lime green dress that shows off all her physical allure. Is it her beauty, or her own manipulative psyche, that attracts Dominic?

Making the book yet more challenging is Pryor's device of alternating voices between these two dangerous personas. And each time he does so, it's up the reader to catch up, because on the page each one speaks as "I." So it pays to note the character name at the opening of each numbered chapter.

Although the manipulations and interrupted interior monologues are compelling and even haunting, they are also deeply disturbing. I do hope there aren't many people like Dominic in the real world. I came away from the book reluctant to face another in this series, and hope that it's not the career of dealing with American courtrooms that is pulling this kind of writing from the author!

If you're a Wyatt or Dexter fan, or a reader of Dave Zeltserman, you need Hollow Man and DOMINIC on your shelf, for comparison and to better grasp the choices of these noir crime-fiction creations. Do expect to get up and check that the double locks are in place on the doors, and that all your other means of self-protection are ready and close at hand. Published by Seventh Street Books, where crime fiction thrives.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Backstory #2: Criminal Masterminds Cut Loose in SIGNAL LOSS, by Australian Author Garry Disher

Garry Disher lives on Australia's Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne, and his Challis and Destry police procedural series often takes place right there. The seventh book in the series, SIGNAL LOSS, came out in late 2016 in Australia, reaching American readers via Soho Crime in late November. Now that the holiday season is wrapping up, it's a great time to treat yourself to a copy of this well-written and lively traditional crime investigation -- with the wry, dark twists of humor that are particularly Disher's own.

The book opens with an intro that could have come from that classic wisecracking mystery master, Donald E. Westlake himself:

Lovelock and Pym. They sounded like some kind of show-business duo -- magicians, maybe; folk singers.

In fact they worked for Hector Kaye, who used to run the Finks out of Kings Cross. That was before he set up as a legitimate businessman and started importing crystal meth from China. They didn't come cheap, Lovelock and Pym. Kaye paid them well and he'd bought them each a house and a car in the past year.

When the pair tackle a murder-for-hire and get overly ambitious, though, their fumbles turn deadly for more than just the intended victim. Add to this chaos the more dangerous threat of an Australian bush fire, and "mistakes are made." The kinds of mistakes that, for investigating Inspector Hal Challis, crack open the past conflicts of a crime ring and turn a small case into major impact.

Meanwhile, Challis's lover Sergeant Ellen Destry -- recently made the head of her department's sex crime unit -- realizes her own investigations are revealing a serial rapist with more skills than most. She and her team tug at each loose thread, working the details until they develop into solid leads. But Destry's distracted at times by another ambitious woman in the force, Sergeant Coolidge (Destry names her Sergeant Cleavage at one point!), who's trying to lure Hal out of Ellen's circuit.

They looked at each other, faintly challenging, bringing back old academy memories to Ellen but probably nothing at all to Coolidge.

"Haven't seen you for ages. You're sex crimes now," Coolidge said, as if that were a side path to nowhere in policing terms.

"And you're drugs," Ellen said.

Coolidge gave her a slow-burning smile and Ellen wondered at the intent: to tease me, unsettle me. She returned the smile, a quick hard nastiness in it, and opened the door of the car. "Good luck," she said and got in and drove out of there. Not much of a victory -- not much of anything -- but why get bogged down fighting the woman? 

As it turns out, Hal is the one who'll get bogged down by Coolidge's interference, but that's jumping a ahead some. Pick up this fast-paced investigation and you'll get the details quickly, because even though it would be great to have a Disher crime novel last a long time, the tension pushed the page turning. In fact, clear the schedule if you can -- here's your winter vacation between the covers in a 345-page "Down Under" romp through twinned cases that are hard to control, and incredibly satisfying to solve.

This is Disher's more accessible, easy-to-enjoy series (read chapter 1 here if you like); his other is the Wyatt series, darkly reminiscent of the Dexter mysteries yet somehow likeable (but, please note, very very dark). He also offers occasional stand-alones and "young adult" (YA) books, which Soho Crime doesn't yet bring across. Check the Soho website for the American releases of Disher's books. So far, I've appreciated all of them (Disher reviews here).

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

From Europe to Texas, Mark Pryor Moves for HOLLOW MAN

I'm a huge fan of Mark Pryor's Hugo Marston series, set in Europe (mostly circling around Paris) where Marston, a retired FBI profiler, provides security for the U.S. Embassy. (Reviews here!)  The Reluctant Matador was the 2015 title in this series, so it's intriguing to have an extra Mark Pryor book in the same year, and this one's billed as a standalone: HOLLOW MAN.

You don't need to know the T. S. Eliot poem that provides the title -- it's clear right away that Domenic, the narrator, is a psychopath, making his way as a Texas prosecutor with a performed set of emotions that he doesn't really feel. Or at least, his versions of them are very different. He's interested, intrigued, annoyed, even angry, but kindness, for him, is a matter of calculating what's in his best interest. A job transfer to a less compelling and less profitable division distresses him. But in the process, the possibility of creating a "perfect crime" arises, and of course, he can't walk away from the challenge.

But I did resist. I had to. It's one thing being unable to get off the slide once you begin; it's quite another to step onto that slippery slope with your eyes wide open. I'd trained myself that being a functional human being meant, for me, recognizing dangerous situations and steering around them. Not resisting the temptations, but avoiding them in the first place. I was the serial adulterer hiring an ugly secretary, or the booze-hound driving the long way home to avoid his local liquor store.

"Prosecutors don't steal cars," I said. "Not this one, anyway."

"It's not stealing," she said, "if you give it back. It's not even borrowing. It's teaching him a lesson."

I've got very mixed reactions to this one. Pryor's writing is compelling and convincing, and the plot he provides is neatly twisted and well paced. But I found I was uneasy "identifying" with this narrator. Maybe I should be used to it -- the Wyatt books from Garry Disher are equally disturbing in terms of being inside a psychopath's mind. But Disher's Wyatt has weak spots in his personal defenses, and takes some risks for others at odd but significant moments, and I find myself on his side. For Domenic, a cautious emotional distance fits much better. I wanted to like him, but all in all, I didn't -- and I wouldn't necessarily prioritize reading another book from his point of view. (Good thing for me it's a standalone, then.)

What did intrigue me mightily was seeing author Mark Pryor make the shift to the Texas setting, where he is himself a transplanted Englishman and an assistant district attorney. I appreciated his know-how on both the legal career and the effect of changing countries. (He has a family and does not appear to be a psychopath himself, I'm glad to note.)

After the already-mentioned Australian Wyatt series and of course the Dexter books, plus Dave Zeltersman's series, I found Pryor's psychopath approach less than satisfying, the the plot was more predictable than I like. But other readers have found the ending surprising. If you like really dark noir and the tension of crossing a legal career into crime, check out HOLLOW MAN. From Seventh Street Books, a publisher that keeps on impressing me with its reach and range.

Australian Crime Fiction: Cato Kwong Series, Alan Carter

There are two significant anchors for Australian crime fiction, and they couldn't be more different: At one pole are the "Bony" investigations by Arthur Upfield, published from 1928 to 1963, taking the "puzzle mystery" into serious terrain with half-caste Aborigine Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. If you pride yourself on knowing your Agatha Christie and think you'd enjoy a more  gritty terrain of both landscape and character conflict, look for one of the Upfield paperbacks that still rattle around. (Caution: They're engrossing. You may want them all.)

At the other pole, much more darkly, are two series from today's grand master of Australian mystery, Garry Disher. His Wyatt books work from inspiration in the Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) character of Parker and endow Wyatt himself with more bitterness, fewer emotions, and a single vulnerability -- and a career as a jewel thief, loner, and sociopath. In extreme contract, Disher's other series, featuring Hugh Challis and Ellen Destry, fingers the social fabric of Australia's Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne, through the emotional tension of being police investigators who fall into a complex love affair that becomes serious and committed -- and a challenge for two workaholics.

Now add a third significant author to the Australia crime fiction shelf: Alan Carter.

Born in 1959 in the United Kingdom, Carter emigrated to Australia in 1991 and worked as a TV documentary director. With 2011 publication of his first crime novel, GETTING WARMER, Carter shot onto the award lists, and his second in the Cato Kwong series is PRIME CUT. Both were released in the United States in 2014; the third book is due this year (Bad Seed) but seems to have hung up in the publication process, as it's now past due.

And what a series. Detective Senior Constable Philip Kwong -- nicknamed Cato, a dig at his Chinese heritage (after the Chinese character in The Pink Panther) -- has sunk so low in the opinion of the police administration that his assignment at the opening of PRIME CUT is to the Stock Squad: the team that investigates dead cows among the ranches. It's dull and demanding at the same time, and it's utterly humiliating. So when Cato has a chance to fill in on a real investigation, he's quickly engaged in the only part of a mining-town crisis that nobody else seems to care about: the discovery on the shore of a headless, armless, legless human torso that nonetheless suggests Asian origin.

Even though he's clearly destined to be shipped back to his tedious assignments, Cato clings to the case day by day, and finds motive, means, and opportunity among the hardscrabble workers and bosses at the booming and brutal mining operation. When he starts to pry into the Chinese workers and their situation, he sets off a cascade of further brutality.

Cato's a complex investigator, hungry for his work and career but caught up in both the social stratification that pushes Asians downward, and his own mistakes in rushing both evidence and accusations. Half the pleasure of reading PRIME CUT is seeing him fall, rise, fall, and possibly move forward.

So it's a delight to have the second book in the series already on hand. GETTING WARMER takes Cato Kwong back to an urban policing slot, where he has a chance of resuming parenthood with his young son. This time, though, he's too ready to jump into a case, risking his own child's safety as well as his own. Politics in the police squad turn as dangerous as the urban criminals. And the endless summer heat and fire danger add to the tension. Soon he's assigned to work with his superior and a very unpleasant prisoner, Gordon Wellard, trying to find out where a young kidnapped girl's being held -- or been buried. It's confusing, even afterward:

The heat bounced off the prison car park. The sky was painfully blue. Cato zapped the locks of the Commodore and they drove off with the air con up to full. The fires were on again: two columns of smoke over the southern hills of the Darling Scarp out Karagullen way, and one close by in bushland near Success. Whoever chose that name for a suburb needed to be strung from a lamppost. ...

"Wellard seems to think he's in charge."

"And?"

"You and him go back a long way. Aren't you meant to be the one in charge?"

"You saying I'm not?"

"Again, you tell me."

Cato's suspicion of his fellow officer turns out to be well founded. But it's all more complicated than that, and soon the summer fires will make it worse.

These books slide along the line of gritty and grim, but with plenty of emotion -- Cato may sometimes wish he doesn't feel pain or loss, but the truth is, he's involved as both an investigator and a dad. His struggles against department politics and pervasive racism add to the tension and interest, and author Alan Carter spins a taut, engaging plot that's so closely bound to the landscape, you can almost feel the grit in your teeth in some of the chapters.

No extraordinary gruesomeness, but a steady surge of urban violence here -- and a very masculine world of crime-fighting and challenge. I enjoyed both books (although I needed to get outside and walk afterward, to reassure myself that I live in an easier, calmer place). It's good to know the third one, Bad Seed, is on its way from Down Under to the American market sometime this year.

Australian Noir Gets Complicated: HELL TO PAY, Garry Disher

Garry Disher's mysteries have come in two basic flavors: crime with a dash of satisfaction in the investigation (try his Hall Challis/Ellen Destry series), and crime from the point of view of sociopaths who make it their lifestyle -- and then find themselves puzzling out some humanity around the edges (that's the Wyatt series). I'd be willing to call them bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened dark.

But with HELL TO PAY, Disher begins what looks like a new series from Soho Crime, featuring Constable Paul Hirschhausen, known to himself and others as Hirsch. The stakes are far different, and the emotions more complex, as Hirsch buckles down to his new assignment as a local constable in a stretch of barren back-country, on the Barrier Highway, under the thumb of the malevolent Sergeant Kropp, his superior officer. Everything appears bitter and painful as the book opens (especially the situation with Kropp and his associated bullies). And it gets worse, as Hirsch's own past becomes clear: He's in disgrace, assumed to have been the whistle-blower who informed on his own "boys in blue" allies in the metropolis of Adelaide, Australia.

That's the reason Hirsch is isolated, despised, tormented by the local police and by Sergeant Kropp: no loyalty to his own kind.

So when Kropp sends Hirsch to respond to a report of "shots fired," Kropp's tone is nasty from the start, even though the call is probably related to some sheep farmers taking pot shots at rabbits or something similar: "No dropkicks on my watch, and no smartarses," Kropp warns Hirsch. An air of unease out at "the scene" turns dangerous as shots fly at Hirsch himself, nearly killing him. But nothing's as it seems -- not the shooters, or their reasoning. And almost before this opening foray into back-country life has resolved, Hirsh is on call again from Kropp, for a body next to the road, possibly from a hit-and-run. When he finds the body, all his instincts and experience go on alert.

So he ran crime scene tape around the area and sat down to wait.

Late afternoon before the accident investigators arrived. Hirsch wanted to hang around, he wanted to propose his theories, but they ignored him, two men and one woman conscious of the dwindling light, the sun smearing itself across the horizon, long shadows playing visual tricks. They took their phtos measured distances, crouched and poked and grid-searched and marked up their diagrams.

"You're blocking the light," the female offices said, her tone indicating she knew exactly who Hirsch was.

His reputation means his efforts are consistently misread, but Hirsch soon has reason to probe this death of a 16-year-old girl more deeply.  Like everything else Hirsch connects with, this isn't what is seems, and his efforts to uncover the truth put him repeatedly into danger, both physical and at the level of soul and self-esteem, as word spreads of who Hirsch is and what he's done in the past.

All of that spells darkness, "Australian noir," and Disher makes us work for insights into Hirsch's character: not a man defend himself fruitlessly, or to lay his grief and fears out in public. But unlike Disher's iconic character Wyatt, Hirsch is readily touched by the pathos and stress of the communities and families around him -- their confusion and sorrow and anger harmonize with his own -- and small details in the way he treats people and the way, despite himself, he falls under the back-country spell of sere beauty win us to his side.

Disher makes a feast out of this layered complexity where personal reserve and the careful distance of career policing mean that the heart is often silenced. There's no gratuitous gore here, no horror show -- but plenty of insight into simple and more intentional evils, and into what it takes to bring goodness back into the light, among those long twisted shadows.

I'm already hungry for the next "Hirsch" book from Disher. I can even let go of the other two series for a while, to fall in with the power and potential redemption ahead in this (presumed) series.

If you're collecting Disher already, buying HELL TO PAY is an easy decision; if you're new to this author, HELL TO PAY is probably his most accessible and rewarding book yet, and a great place to start getting to know his work.

PS: Disher's author site often isn't up to date, but it's still of interest, with extra tidbits giving insight into this well-established author: http://www.garrydisher.com.

Summer Reading: Intense Mysteries from Established Authors

Here are some terrific releases for this summer, to put into the beach bag or suitcase.

David Downing, JACK OF SPIES. First in a new series, espionage and an unforgettable protagonist, Jack McColl, in the threatening season as the Great War becomes inevitable. Reviewed already: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2014/05/world-war-i-espionage-from-david.html ... Full set of Downing reviews, here.http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/search?q=David+downing

Henry Chang, DEATH MONEY. Fourth in the Jack Yu series, set in Chinatown, best yet. Review over the weekend, if I can make time. Missed out on the earlier ones? Reviews here.

Garry Disher, HELL TO PAY. Let's hope this is the start of a new series .... yes, it's that good. Review to follow soon. If you haven't yet read Disher's Australian police procedurals and very dark crime fiction, here's a great place to start. We keep mentioning Disher and Dave and I fight (gently) over who gets which ones first; see why, here.

Anna Loan-Wilsey, A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT. Third in the Hattie Davish historical mysteries, well plotted and paced, again showing that this author can take her material outside the soft "historical" stereotype with her assertive and intriguing sleuth. June 24 pub date, review soon. Loan-Wilsey's first book was amazing: review for that one, here.

Taylor Stevens, THE CATCH. Exceeds even the high bar already set by Stevens for the androgenous and tough Vanessa Munroe, in another global thriller. July 15 pub date; review in early July. I wait all year for the next one, on edge (really). See why, here.

Julia Keller SUMMER OF THE DEAD. West Virginia, third to feature prosecutor Bell Elkins, full of action, suspense, and bitter questions. Pub date is August, and review will run sooner, as it's worth pre-ordering (and lucky you, if you can attend an author event). Get ready with a look at her earlier work here.

Garry Disher, WHISPERING DEATH: Police Procedural with Depth

Australian Garry Disher writes two series of mysteries that I follow closely: his very dark and violent Wyatt group, where the protagonist is a sociopath that Wyatt manages to present in ways that let readers sympathize with (what does that say about our inner selves?); and the Hal Challis/Ellen Destry series, in which WHISPERING DEATH is title six.  I look forward to each Challis/Destry mystery, both for the Australian police procedural aspects (Disher usually include cross-jurisdiction conflict and challenges within the police force, such as sexual discrimination and political pressure), and for the warmth of Challis as a conflicted yet committed person of "good heart."

Reading WHISPERING DEATH will be a spoiler for some of the earlier books, so if you haven't yet read them, I strongly recommend starting at the beginning, with Dragon Man, which Soho Crime brought to the US in 2005. But if you're headed directly into this newest book instead, you'll find plenty of background to let you enjoy it directly. The only part seriously missing is Challis's lover Ellen Destry herself, as she's headed away on a European training in her newly embraced field of solving sex crimes. But her role as investigator of this aspect is quickly assumed by the edgy and sharp sergeant Jeannie Schiff, on hand to help deal with the crime that Challis's team needs to rapidly resolve.

"Thanks for coming down," Challis said. "As I said on the phone, our sexual offences team isn't in place yet, so we could do with some help."

"Well, yeah," drawled Schiff. "Abduction and rape? A bit different from some sad bloke waving his penis at schoolgirls." Her voice was raspy, low, not unpleasant, but sharp underneath.

Disher sets up, at the same time, a different sort of serial criminal in action in the same terrain: a career burglar with an eye for high-value items, including artwork. Grace -- clearly a pseudonym for some of her crimes, but still significant as a name -- is a highly trained pro, with rules for her operations, and plenty of financial success from them. But on the inside, she's desperate for the connections that her career forbids, and she's also close to being a sociopath herself: isolated, with feelings cut away, and a past that speaks of abuse and loss. Because she tend to rob empty houses in carefully planned heists, she isn't as violent as Wyatt, the grim criminal in Disher's other series. Yet I kept hearing Wyatt's voice in Grace's. So the two series are echoing in each other.

If you explore the series in sequence, you'll have the delight of seeing Disher's writing become ever tighter, every more impeccably paced. Even the dialogue, inner and between characters, ascends in skill, to the point where conversations in WHISPERING DEATH have clearly been fine-tuned, one word at a time, for maximum impact and elegant revelation of character. Disher is now being called a grand master in the field, and I agree.

One last note on this book: Sure, there's violent crime in it. But what drew me through the pages, turning me antisocial for the weekend, was the affection, comradeship, and commitment that Disher's characters exhibit. And that's what I'll remember most about WHISPERING DEATH: the goodness in the ordinary police detectives, that positions them in true opposition to the forces of evil.

PS -- Click here for other Kingdom Books reviews of Disher's books.

Australian Crime Fiction: Garry Disher, Again

Dave and I have both written about Australian author Garry Disher's books. There are two crime series to follow, among Disher's more than 40 books; both series have been available in Australia for quite a while. Here they are:

The Wyatt Series
Kickback 1991
Paydirt 1992
Deathdeal 1993
Crosskill 1994
Port Vila Blues 1996
The Fallout 1997
Wyatt 2010

The Detective Inspector Hal Challis Series
The Dragon Man 1999
Kitty Hawk Down 2003
Snapshot 2005
Chain of Evidence 2007
Blood Moon 2009
Whispering Death 2011

In some ways it's a bit strange that the books have taken so long to reach the US market, but there are two factors to note: the gaps of years in the series (especially the 13-year gap in the Wyatt books), and the relative youth of international crime fiction imprint Soho Crime. It's hard for a publisher to make good progress when releasing more than one book per year by a given author (although see the recent blog post on Timothy Hallinan's "Junior Bender" series -- NOT a young adult series in spite of the word "Junior"). When the Wyatt series took flame again in 2010, Soho Crime began bringing the rest of Disher's books here.

Most recently, in August 2012, Soho Crime brought us PORT VILA BLUES. It's a fascinating look into Wyatt's life, a life that's remained mostly mysterious through the series. And we don't get details of his childhood or any other normal "sheet" on a criminal. What we see, though, through the quiet consistent narrative from Wyatt's point of view, is how the world can make sense to a psychopath. Wyatt knows his emotions are not "normal" but they are normal for him and he has no choice -- he operates on a basis of well-planned criminal activities, spread apart by stretches of a mostly uninteresting and anonymous life. Without family, without close friends, he's almost safe from long-term identification, other than the scary rumors about him that circulate in the underworld.

At the opening of PORT VILA BLUES, Wyatt is neatly conducting a technologically savvy, methodically planned burglary, based on a tip from a  dying colleague. In an almost compassionate move, Wyatt's linked himself to Jardine, who still has the capacity to connect Wyatt with a good fence. Or so the two men think.

Wyatt watched Jardine carefully. Jardine's face had grown more elastic in the past few minutes, as if his mind worked well if he had something to stimulate it. Wyatt even recognized an old expression on Jardine's face, a mixture of alertness and absorption as he calculated the odds of a problem.

"Fine."

But the burglary wasn't as simple as it should have been, and the fence turns out to be a "sheila," Liz Redding, who's also not what she appears. Eventually, despite the opposition that will rise between Redding and Wyatt, there's also realization of a similarity: Redding's drive may oppose Wyatt's, but it comes from an interior that's nearly as emotionally stripped. When someone on the side of law enforcement verges on being a psychopath, do we name that tendency, or do we label it an asset instead?

I'll be reading this again. Disher's steady-fingered probing of Wyatt's psyche and of his reluctant connections to others creates a back-music to the books that stays fresh even during a second or third reading, and continues to raise questions about the criminals among us today.

There's a "new" book from Disher releasing in the US on December 18, in the other crime series, the one featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry. It's called Whispering Death and I'm about to order a couple of copies for Kingdom Books. I started out more deeply drawn to the Challis and Destry series -- it probes a warmer, more "human" part of the psyche -- but by now, after comparing Wyatt favorably with Donald Westlake's darker books and also Lee Child's Jack Reacher, I'd say I want both Disher crime series on my shelf. And my desert island.