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Synopsis
In his latest investiagion, private eye Cliff Hardy comes to the aid of retired senior policeman and longtime friend, Frank Parker. Haunted by a case from his early career involving two doctors, Parker needs Hardy to uncover the truth and find out if one of the doctors, now deceased, was wrongly convicted and if Parker was blinded by the passion he had for the presumed-guilty doctor’s wife. Granite-faced Hardy discovers that teasing out the truth is not easy as he sorts through old memories, aging names and faces, and his friend’s guilt while encountering the likes of dodgy plastic surgeons, a broken-down ex-copper, a voyeuristic cripple, and a hired hit man who wields a mean baseball bat. Animosities, arrogance, and ambition create a dangerous spider’s web around this reluctant hero as Hardy searches for the hard truth.
Susan G. Baird - Library Journal
Proving why Corris is known as the father of Australian crime fiction, this latest installment in his Cliff Hardy series (The Coast Road, Saving Billie) is a riveting roller coaster of a story set around New South Wales. The legendary detective investigates a 20-year-old closed murder case when new details may implicate Frank Parker, Hardy's old friend and a retired cop who had originally solved the contract killing of a doctor by charging the doctor's partner, a plastic surgeon who altered criminals' appearances, with the crime. In addition to incorporating a clever story line and fascinating Aussie locale, the author adds spice with the curmudgeonly Hardy's insulting personal descriptions; e.g., he says of a heavy-smoking criminal, "His puny chest heaved as air flowed into his wrecked system." Who can resist? An excellent purchase for all mystery collections, especially where international hard-boiled crime fiction is popular. [For more Aussie mysteries, see also Garry Disher's Chain of Evidenceand Peter Temple's The Broken Shore.-Ed.]