Published in 1980, The Dying Trade introduced readers to one of Australian crime fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists, Sydney-based private investigator Cliff Hardy. At the time of his death last year, Peter Corris had written more than forty mysteries starring the hardscrabble gumshoe. I’ve read maybe half of them, and even the mid-grade mysteries are buffed to high gloss thanks to the author’s economy with words, and acute sense of place; Corris’s ear is finely attuned to the voices of Sydney’s distinct neighbourhoods. Not to mention the first-person narrator makes for good company.
The pleasures of The Dying Trade may be primitive, but they’re genuine. There are echoes of Chandler and Hammett, but Hardy’s first outing isn’t some lame Aussie pastiche. Here, Hardy is hired by a wealthy property developer to determine who is harassing his sister. But of course there’s far more to it than that; and as Hardy digs deeper, he discovers dark and deadly secrets connected to the Gutteridge family.
What makes The Drying Trade, and the entire Hardy series so compelling, is the author’s ability to extricate moral complexity from absolutely everyone on the page; suspects, victims, even the protagonist himself.
ISBN: 9781921922176
Format: Paperback / softback
Pages: 372
Imprint: Text Classics
Publisher: Text Publishing
Publish Date: 26-Apr-2012
Country of Publication: Australia
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