WET GRAVES – Peter Corris

This is the first Cliff Hardy yarn I’ve read since my late teens/early twenties. The first time I went on an adventure with the private detective I was not long out of school and living in Sydney and it was the first time I’d read a book where the landscapes, streets and points of interest were all local. I clearly remember Cliff pelting down Anzac Parade trying to lose someone following him, and in my mind I was urging him to turn into High Street (where I lived in 84)… and he did. There’s something engaging about finally reading a yarn where the addresses helped paint the picture unlike exotic but unfamiliar backdrops like Hollywood Boulevarde and Route 66 that I’d never seen and didn’t help me picture a thing. So picking up another Cliff Hardy yarn – which I read entirely on a smartphone – was a bit of a walk down memory lane (another street address I’m familiar with).

Author Peter Corris is a bit minimalist on scene setting and character building but that works just fine for this world weary, ambivalent Aussie gumshoe. This yarn is a good one… short and direct with a plot and subplot that more or less come together in the end. The lead character is a former soldier and former insurance investigator and a half-decent fighter who seems to lose more fights than he wins. But the Harbour city, and the Harbour and Harbour Bridge, are characters themselves. And just what could tie together relatives of the original bridge makers? Corris’ descriptions of parts of Sydney that Hardy visits aren’t elaborate and the author probably relies a little too much on the readers ability to bring their own memories and knowledge of the areas to the table. But it’s a good Aussie yarn and a good whodunnit.

In short, I want to get back into reading the adventures of Cliff Hardy. This one was first published in 1991 and there’s a sizeable queue of other Cliff Hardy’s waiting to be read. Unfortunately goodreads doesn’t let us do half stars in our star ratings or I’d give this a solid 3.5 (or 7 on the ten scale) but have rounded down to fit the available stars.