2 BY PETER CORRIS

Peter Corris is another author whose books I buy when I see then never read. He's an Australian author who has written about 40 Cliff Hardy PI books since the first one, The Dying Trade was published in 1980. I must have about a dozen or so of them scattered on the shelves.

He's written about 3 other series characters, Browning (7 books), Ray Crawley (6), Luke Dunlop (3) plus around half a dozen standalones and maybe 10 non-fiction books.









I'll stick with the Hardy books I have for now and will read them in no particular order as its madness for me to even consider embarking on  reading my way through a 40 book series start to finish, when I don't own most of the books and I'm guessing half of them are scarcer than rocking horse pooh and would need to be located somewhere on the other side of the world. Don't let me stop you reading your way through them though!


Peter Corris' website is here.

Cliff Hardy is described on Corris's site as.....Cliff Hardy, born and raised in working class Maroubra, ex-army, law student dropout, insurance company investigator turned Private Eye, has a love-hate relationship with his time and place. He embraces the best aspects of Australian life - the tolerance, the classlessness, the vigorous urban and rural culture - while despising the greed and the conservatism that are constantly threatening to undercut what he sees as "real Australia".

Inevitably drawn into the ambit of the people he deplores, Hardy struggles to resolve his cases while remaining true to his own threatened values. The professional challenges spill over into his personal life where he is never on firm ground.

SAVING BILLIE

Private investigator Cliff Hardy tackles one of his most difficult cases yet in this gripping detective novel that finds him in the far southwestern suburbs of Sydney. When a journalist hires him to find Billie Merchant, a woman with incriminating information about media-giant Joanas Clement and who is being tracked by both Clement and Clement's rival, Barclay Greaves, Hardy must work hard to stay one step ahead. After Hardy tracks her down, he must juggle her self-destructive behaviors while negotiating his escape from Clement and Greaves. Set against the backdrop of a federal election campaign, all outcomes are uncertain in this gritty, action-packed story full of colorful characters and close calls.






THE UNDERTOW

Frank Parker, retired senior policeman and Cliff Hardy's long time friend, has a problem. A case from early in his career involving two doctors, one of whom was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill the other and went to gaol for the crime, is coming back to haunt him. The convicted, now dead doctor may have been innocent, and Parker had been the lover of the beautiful Catherine Castiglione, the doctor's wife. Hardy tracks back through the now ageing names and faces, trying to tease out the truth. If the doctor was set up, who was responsible and why? Along the way Hardy encounters dodgy plastic surgeons, a broken-down ex-copper, a voyeuristic cripple and a hireling who wields a mean baseball bat. A charismatic player is the son of Catherine Castiglione, a super-bright charmer, who just may be Frank Parker's love child. Animosities, arrogance and ambition create a spider's web around the violence that breaks out as Hardy searches for the spider.