Garry Disher Books

'A scorchingly good novel' MICHAEL ROBOTHAM 'Disher is the gold standard for rural noir' CHRIS HAMMER 'An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity' DERVLA MCTIERNAN AN ACT OF INEXPLICABLE CRUELTY. A FAMILY DESTROYED. Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but his community work - welfare checks and a light touch - is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a vehicle, and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch's life has been peaceful. Until he's called to an incident on Kitchener Street, a strange and vicious attack that sickens the community. And when the Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living on a forgotten back road, it doesn't look like a season of goodwill at all... 'In this brilliant novel, Disher takes his readers on a harrowing journey' JOCK SERONG 'There has been a lot of fuss about Australian rural noir in recent years, but few, if any, do it better than Disher' Canberra Weekly 'Peter Temple and Garry Disher will be identified as the crime writers who redefined Australian crime fiction' Sydney Morning Herald

Hal Challis is 1000 kilometres away from the Peninsula, watching his father die. Ellen Destry is left to mind his house for a month. And his job. Katie Blasko, aged nine, has disappeared. Ellen fears abduction-the Peninsula is sleepy, picturesque, prosperous, but she suspects the existence of a paedophile ring. Superintendent McQuarrie scoffs: the girl came from the Seaview Estate, notorious for broken homes and truancy. Ellen's team investigates. They find suspects, but an officer is murdered and his witness discredited. They find DNA evidence, but the sample is contaminated. Who can Ellen trust, when lawyers, judges and police officers might be involved? Meanwhile, Challis feels out of time and place in the remote outback town of his youth. Past failures haunt him; his father is dying slowly and bitterly; and Homicide Squad detectives have arrived from the city to question his sister about a murder. Challis can cope with being warned off. He can cope with his father. But soon the past catches with him.

Inspector Hal Challis has been summoned to his boyhood home, Mawson’s Bluff in the Australian Outback, where his father is dying. There his past comes back to haunt him... and endanger his life. Meanwhile, a serial pedophile is on the loose on the Mornington Peninsula, and Sergeant Ellen Destry, who is left to head up the area’s Crime Investigation Unit, must find a little girl who was abducted from the fairgrounds at the annual Waterloo Show before it is too late. From the Hardcover edition.

Hirsch's rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day's end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge. Today he's driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They're checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don't quite add up. Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much - a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight. But two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son's.

Winter in Tiverton, and Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women's underwear, and Hirsch knows how that kind of crime can escalate. Then two calls come in: a child abandoned in a caravan, filthy and starving. And a man on the rampage at the primary school. Hirsch knows how things like that can escalate, too. An absent father who isn't where he's supposed to be; another who flees to the back country armed with a rifle. Families under pressure can break. But it's always a surprise when the killing starts.

A modern western set in an isolated Australian bush town with a soaring crime rate, where a local constable with a troubled past must investigate the death of a teenage girl whose murder threatens to set the dusty streets ablaze. Constable Paul Hirschhausen—”Hirsch”—is a recently demoted detective sent from Adelaide, Australia’s southernmost booming metropolis, to Tiverton, a one-road town in rustic, backwater “wool and wheat” country three hours north. Hirsch isn’t just a disgraced cop; the internal investigations bureau is still trying to convict him of something, even if it means planting evidence. When someone leaves a pistol cartridge in his mailbox, Hirsch suspects that his career isn't the only thing on the line. But the tiny town of Tiverton has more crime than one lone cop should have to handle. The stagnant economy, rural isolation, and entrenched racism and misogyny mean every case Hirsch investigates is a new basket of snakes. When the body of a 16-year-old local girl is found on the side of the highway, the situation in Tiverton gets even more sinister, and whether or not he finds her killer, there’s going to be hell to pay. Paperback edition found under the title Bitter Wash Road .

The long-awaited sixth installment in the Inspector Hal Challis series set in Australia, available in the United States at last! Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: dressed down by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour. But there's plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis's Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that's a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis's patch. Meanwhile, at the Waterloo Police Station, Challis finds his officers have their own issues. Scobie Sutton, still struggling with his wife's depression, seems to be headed for a career crisis; and something very interesting is going on between Constable Pam Murphy and Jeanne Schiff, the feisty young sergeant on assignment from the Sex Crimes Unit.

Set in Australia during the Great Depression, 15-year-old Neil and his family seek fortune as gold miners amidst outlaws. A mysterious couple, Ivan and Kitty, arrives, leading to a murder. The story features an exciting plot, exotic setting, and memorable characters. Unabridged edition with translations of difficult words and additional notes.

Twenty years ago, Charlie Deravin's mother went missing near the family beach shack - believed murdered. Her body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since. Now Charlie's back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother's disappearance, he's run out of leads. Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site - and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.

Summer on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne. The heat's ramping up, the ususal holiday madness building. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is already recycling his shower water and starting to dread Christmas. But this year there's something more. Women abducted and murdered on the Old Highway. A pall of fear over the scorched paddocks. The media are demanding answers - and Challis's sleepy beat is set to explode.