(post by Alistair Harkness)

For Christmas last year, I received three novels by Australian rural crime author Garry Disher – and cannot recommend them highly enough. Even for those of you in other places, they are all well-crafted and rollicking good reads in the rural noir. Disher has been quite a prolific writer across a number of genres and for multiple audiences, but I will focus briefly on the three Australian rural crime titles I have read this year.

 

Bitter Wash Road (2013) and Peace (2019)

Bitter Wash Road (2013) is set in outback South Australia and centres on a Constable, recently demoted and sent to a single office police station in the fictional town of Tiverton. It is there that he must ingratiate himself with locals, deal with his police seniors whilst also keeping the peace and upholding the law. For a longer assessment, this book has been reviewed by The Guardian newspaper.

 

 

 

What has prompted this blog post is that a sequel – Peace (2019) – involving the same central character in the same locale, has just recently been published. With Christmas just a month away, I am dropping hints to my family – but I am not at all sure that I can wait that long to get a copy and sit down for a read!

 

 

 

 

Under the Cold Bright Lights (2017)

Under the Cold Bright Lights (2017) was particularly interesting for me, as it is a police procedural set on the Mornington Peninsula near to where I live and I was able to recognise many familiar (only subtly disguised) places throughout the novel. But this is by no means important to other readers – as with the other books, this one is gripping from start to finish. Whilst not strictly rural in its setting and focus – the characters slip from bustling Melbourne to the urban fringe and much less bustling parts of the Mornington Peninsula – the reader is led on quite an adventure. This book was reviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald.

 

 

 

Signal Loss (2016)

And lastly, Signal Loss (2016) is the most recent instalment in Disher’s Peninsula Crimes series (the Challis and Destry Novels). In this one, Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry are the lead characters, trying to identify bodies and on the hunt for a serial rapist.

 

 

 

 

More on Garry Disher

The Sydney Morning Herald has recently published a profile piece on Garry Disher and you can read and listen to more at his publisher’s website. Copies of these novels are readily available, including from the Book Depository.