Kittyhawk Down (Inspector Hal Challis Series #2)

“A police procedural . . . featuring a squad of interestingly flawed homicide cops … working multiple cases that feature multiple puzzles and a pool of incisively well-drawn murder suspects. . . . First rate.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Gripping. . . . As the story neatly advances from the viewpoints of characters both major and minor, Disher artfully employs misdirection. . . . Fans of [Peter Robinson or Ian Rankin] will find much to like in this dark whodunit.”—Publishers Weekly

“Procedural fans looking for something a little different will devour this one…. Enough dark overtones to elevate the series into the Ian Rankin league.”—ALA Booklist

The once-peaceful beach resort of Bushrangers Bay, not far from Melbourne, is the site of multiple crimes that must be investigated by Homicide Squad Inspector Hal Challis of the Mornington Peninsula Police Force and his staff. A toddler is missing; an unidentified corpse has been fished from the sea; cars are being stolen and torched; letter boxes are being burned. And then one of Challis’s own friends, Kitty Casement, who runs an aerial photography service and flies a Kittyhawk, is murdered. Figuring out the connections and identifying the criminals absorbs all the energy and intelligence of this cast of sympathetic but complicated policemen and women.

A Detective Inspector Challis murder mystery.

Publishers Weekly

In Australian author Disher's gripping second police procedural (after 2004's The Dragon Man), Melbourne homicide detective Hal Challis contends with the pressure of two unsolved murders and his inability to sever all ties with his wife, Angela, who years earlier was convicted of conspiring to have him killed by her lover and remains a suicidal prison inmate. Challis's current relationship with journalist Tessa Kane gets put on hold after his wandering eye fixes on Janet "Kitty" Casement, an aerial photographer. When someone threatens Kitty's life, Challis enlists his team to probe a maze of connections involving a loan shark and a letter-writing crank known as the Meddler. As the story neatly advances from the viewpoints of characters both major and minor, Disher artfully employs misdirection to conceal the identity of the criminal targeting the photographer. Even unsympathetic figures like the Meddler and a lecherous, reactionary police officer come across as three-dimensional. While Disher is not yet in the same league as a Peter Robinson or an Ian Rankin, fans of those authors will find much to like in this dark whodunit. Agent, Jenny Darling (Australia). (July 6) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Garry Disher is the author of over forty books for adults and children. His crime fiction includes numerous anthology stories and the Wyatt novels, including Kickback, winner of the German Crime Fiction Critics Prize 2000. The first in his Detective Inspector Challis murder mystery series, The Dragon Man, won the German Crime Fiction Critics Prize 2001.