A selection of stories featuring Australia's favourite PI, plus unpublished writing by Peter Corris on crime. For almost four decades Peter Corris was known as 'the godfather of Australian crime fiction', and Cliff Hardy has been Australia's favourite private investigator since he solved his first case in 1980. This selection of stories starts with Cliff's early days driving round Glebe in his battered Falcon, drinking at the Toxteth Hotel and taking on cases that more often than not leave him as battered as his car. As Cliff becomes older and wiser, he prefers to use his head more than his fists, but the cases are as tricky as ever and Hardy's clients lead him to the murkiest surroundings. To further celebrate Peter Corris's legacy, editor Jean Bedford has also included a selection of his columns on the world of crime and crime writing, along with his 'ABC of Crime Writing'. From Adultery to Yeti, via Gumshoe, Hit man and The Mob, this entertaining compendium gives a fascinating insight into Peter's vast knowledge of the genre. Peter Corris was the author of nearly ninety books between 1973 and 2017, forty-two of them featuring the legendary Cliff Hardy PI. Other fiction included the 'Creepy' Crawley and Browning series, along with his non-fiction books, including biographies of Fred Hollows and Ray Barrett, and A Round of Golf with Peter Corris.
Cliff Hardy has his licence back - but does he still have what it takes to cut it as a PI on the streets of Sydney? Cliff reckons the skills are still there, if a little rusty, and actor Bobby Forrest's case looks promising. As well as a complex client who may not be all he seems, the players include his compelling lover, a rejected, threatening woman and various media power brokers. When Bobby is killed Hardy becomes the client of his father, a man with a shady past and his own problems with the law. A range of suspects and motives test Hardy's powers, as his investigations take him through inner Sydney, the city's west, the central coast and the Wollondilly Plains. He encounters prostitutes, corporate movers and shakers, cops, and a would-be golf guru. A media magnate's kick-boxing assistant poses a threat and only Hardy's experience, resilience, and persistence bring him to a shock understanding of what it has all been about.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' An old flame, former police officer Glen Withers, is back in Cliff Hardy's life - but it's strictly business as Glen is now also a private investigator, with a wealthy family for a client. She and Hardy join forces to take on the case of Rodney St John Harkness, a recovering alcoholic with a murky past. Hardy's digging into Harkness's past becomes urgent when Rodney and Glen disappear, and the trail leads to the beaches of the Central Coast. The plot tangles and the danger grows as Hardy tries to stay one step ahead of some desperate players.
Sex, sport and steroids - an explosive mix for Hardy's 22nd case. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Cliff Hardy goes to Leichhardt gym proprietor Wesley Scott for a 'fitness assessment' and is soon trying to get his son Clinton - known as The Black Prince - back on the rails. A sports star in the making and destined for the top, Clinton is obsessed with tracking down the dealer who sold his girlfriend the steroids that led to her death. Hardy has to find Clinton before he ends up on a murder charge - the trail leads him up to North Queensland and into the shadowy world of illegal boxing.
A delightful, humorous collection of golf stories by one of Australia's best known writers featuring a typical 'hacker', Morris Palmer, who takes up golf in his early retirement and suffers all the traumas associated with the game.
Cliff Hardy, with his PI licence cancelled and his career in Sydney at an end, is preparing for a trip overseas. Cleaning out his office, he comes across an open file - an unresolved case from the 1980s. He starts reading and is thrown back to his investigation of the disappearance of Justin Hampshire. At first glance a straightforward missing person matter, the investigation took on twists and turns involving military history, Sydney criminals and corruption at high levels. The Hampshire case took Cliff from the south coast to the Blue Mountains and posed some unresolved questions which have preyed on his mind for 20 years.
For almost four decades Peter Corris was known as 'the godfather of Australian crime fiction', and Cliff Hardy has been Australia's favourite private investigator since he solved his first case in 1980. This selection of stories starts with Cliff's early days driving round Glebe in his battered Falcon, drinking at the Toxteth Hotel and taking on cases that more often than not leave him as battered as his car. As Cliff becomes older and wiser, he prefers to use his head more than his fists, but the cases are as tricky as ever and Hardy's clients lead him to the murkiest surroundings. To further celebrate Peter Corris's legacy, editor Jean Bedford has also included a selection of his columns on the world of crime and crime writing, along with his 'ABC of Crime Writing'. From Adultery to Yeti, via Gumshoe, Hit man and The Mob, this entertaining compendium gives a fascinating insight into Peter's vast knowledge of the genre. Peter Corris was the author of nearly ninety books between 1973 and 2017, forty-two of them featuring the legendary Cliff Hardy PI. Other fiction included the 'Creepy' Crawley and Browning series, along with his non-fiction books, including biographies of Fred Hollows and Ray Barrett, and A Round of Golf with Peter Corris.
When journalist Louise Kramer hires Cliff Hardy to find Billie Marchant, Hardy heads for unfamiliar territory of the far south-western suburbs of Sydney. Billie claims to have information about media big-wheel Jonas Clement -- the subject of an incriminating expose by Kramer. Clement doesn't want Billie found and Clement's enemies want to find her first. Hardy tracks Billie down, but saving Billie' means not only rescuing her, it means saving her from herself. Billie, ex-stripper, sometime hooker and druggie, is a handful. Hardy gets help from members of the Pacific Islander community and others, but the enemies close in and he is soon fighting on several different fronts. Clement and his chief rival, Barclay Greaves, have heavies in the field, and Hardy has to negotiate his way through their divided loyalties. Some negotiations involve cunning but others involve guns. The action takes place against the backdrop of the Federal election campaign, and all outcomes are uncertain. 'I don't know how many Cliff Hardy novels there are, but there aren't enough.' - Kerry Greenwood, Sydney Morning Herald 'Hardy is a wonderful creation still, under Corris's magisterial narrative control, capable of those odd echoes and resonances, the elegiac interludes, that characterise the best crime writing.' Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian odd echoes and resonances, the elegiac interludes, that characterise the best crime writing.' - Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' When Todd Barnes, war veteran and popular drinking mate, leaves Cliff Hardy a tidy sum to find out who killed him, Hardy can hardly refuse - and he needs the money. Todd's widow and some of his cronies are not always cooperative, however, and it's hard to tell friends from enemies, especially when it comes to the mysterious Kevin O'Fearna, known as O'Fear. Hardy's battered Falcon takes him from the familiar mean streets of Sydney to equally dangerous bushland, where he's on his own up against heavy odds. A not-unfamiliar situation for Sydney's most enduring private investigator.
When the battle-scarred but indefatigable PI loses all his dough to an unscrupulous financial advisor, he has to follow the money trail deep into Sydney's underbelly--the territory of big money and bent deals--to get himself back in the black "When beautiful young women kiss you on the cheek you know you're over the hill, but I didn't really feel like that. As Wesley said, I still had the moves." Cliff Hardy may still have the moves but he's in trouble. The economy's tanking and he's been conned by a financial advisor and lost everything he's got. Cliff only knows one way, and that's forward, so he's following the money trail. It's a twisted road that leads him down deep into Sydney's underbelly, into the territory of big money, bent deals, big yachts, and bad people. Cliff's in greater danger than ever before, but he's as tenacious as a dog with a bone.
In this brand new collection of short stories, Cliff Hardy has his hands full with murder, blackmail, embezzlement and more. True to form, Cliff doesn't wast words or pull punches as he untangles an ugly divorce, investigates the killing of a Glebe drinking buddy, and takes care of a nasty case of blackmail. The eleven tales are set in Cliff's Sydney, a place of thugs, mid-morning beers and crooked cops.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Cliff Hardy always finds it hard to turn down a job, but in the case of Paula Wilberforce he should have followed his instincts. Against his better judgement, he becomes involved in a wealthy family's disputes, where old rivalries and hatreds come to the surface and murder is the result. His gun is stolen, and when he finds himself wanted in relation to a shooting, Hardy must find the murderer before he strikes again.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Is Sydney gun city? It certainly seems so when Cliff Hardy is hired by entrepreneur and one-time pistol-shooting champion Timothy Greenhall to investigate the violent death of his troubled son. Soon Hardy is pitched into a world of crooked cops - former members of the Gun Control Unit - outlaw bikies and honest police trying to quietly clean the stables. Two more murders raise the stakes and relationships are stretched to breaking point. Hardy hooks up with a determined policewoman and forms an unlikely alliance with a charismatic bikie chief. Uncovering the tangled conspiracy behind the murders takes Hardy to the Blue Mountains and Camden, to plush legal chambers and a confrontation in an inner-west park - all against the roar of 750cc engines.
A riveting novel in the Cliff Hardy series from highly successful Australian crime fiction writer, Peter Corris. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Is brilliant young filmmaker Carmel Wise the innocent victim of gangland violence or is she enmeshed in a pornography racket as the press and the police imply? Carmel's businessman father hires Cliff Hardy to find the real reason 'the video girl' was shot dead outside the Greenwich Apartments in Kings Cross. Hardy follows a trail which is broken but clear - houses and flats with the power on and the rent paid, stand empty; photographs and other documents lead to Lionel Darcy, owner of the Champagne Cabaret; banks and business houses will supply just enough information to keep Hardy warm. The trail takes him to the sunny peninsula, leafy Lane Cove and the industrial waterfront. Hardy finds that every question and every answer has to be paid for in pain and fear. And to some questions there may be no answers at all. 'Indigenous thrillers are better than any others, and the best of all are Peter Corris' accounts of his Sydney private detective, Cliff Hardy.' - Mark Thomas, Canberra Times
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' A client falls from the twentieth storey of a building; a rock star goes missing; an erotic Mongol scroll vanishes; a film star has a problem that has nothing to do with creativity - it's all in a day's work for Cliff Hardy. Yachts dance on the sparkling waters of the harbour, and the back alleys are busy: the city's high and low classes go about their daily business. But nothing really surprises Hardy, and, for a hundred and twenty-five a day (plus expenses), he'll provide a few surprises of his own .
Stripped of his private detective licence and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the US to help Lily's brother's tilt for a world boxing title. In San Diego he suffers a heart attack and undergoes a quadruple bypass. He meets nurse Margaret McKinley, an expatriate Australian who is concerned about the disappearance in Sydney of her father - renowned geologist Dr Henry McKinley. Hardy undertakes to investigate in association with Hank Bachelor, his former associate who now runs his own agency. It turns out that McKinley had discovered a way to tap into the massive Sydney basin acquifier, a possible solution to the city's water problems. Working with Margaret who visits Sydney, Bachelor, and his daughter, Megan, Hardy confronts an old enemy and contending forces bent on exploiting the discovery and prepared to kill for it."--The publisher.
In this gripping novel from highly successful Australian crime fiction writer Peter Corris, Cliff Hardy's reluctant status as 'security consultant' to a politician takes him to Washington DC where the threats are real and the rules are different. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Politician Peter January is having trouble staying alive so he hires Cliff Hardy to help him. Hardy dislikes the role of politician's 'security consultant' but he dislikes bombers, hit men and hatemailers even more. Protecting January leads to protecting his assistant, Trudi Bell, which is a more enjoyable assignment. It also takes Hardy to Washington DC where the threats are real and the rules are different. To stand close to January is to stand close to danger and corruption, but there are even greater evils and Hardy cannot back away. 'Cliff Hardy is. as Australian as two-up and Fosters.' - The Australian
An unexpected obituary takes Cliff Hardy on a trip down memory lane to a case he's been trying to forget for twenty years: oil, fraud, boxing, racing - and murder. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' One case still haunts Hardy Legendary PI Cliff Hardy has reached an age when the obituaries have become part of his reading, and one triggers his memory of a case in the late 1980s. Back then Sydney was awash with colourful characters, and Cliff is reminded of a case involving 'Ten-Pound Pom' Barry Bartlett and racing identity and investor Sir Keith Mountjoy. Bartlett, a former rugby league player and boxing manager, then a prosperous property developer, had hired Hardy to check on the bona fides of young Ronny Saunders, newly arrived from England, and claiming to be Bartlett's son from an early failed marriage. The job brought Hardy into contact with Richard Keppler, head of the no-rules Botany Security Systems, Bronwen Marr, an undercover AFP operative, and sworn adversary Des O'Malley. At a time when corporate capitalism was running riot, an embattled Hardy searched for leads - was Ronny Saunders a pawn in a game involving big oil and fraud on an international scale? Two murders raise the stakes and with the sinister figure of Lady Betty Lee Mountjoy pulling the strings, it was odds against a happy outcome.
Politics, murder and sex push Hardy to the limit. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' When Cliff Hardy signs on as a bodyguard for charismatic populist Rory O'Hara, who is about to embark on a campaign of social and political renewal, it looks like a tricky job - O'Hara has enemies. A murder and a kidnapping cause the campaign to fall apart. Hired to investigate the murder, Hardy uncovers hidden agendas among O'Hara's staff as well as powerful political and commercial forces at work. His investigation takes him from the pubs and brothels of Sydney to the heart of power in Canberra and the outskirts of Darwin. There he teams up with a resourceful indigenous private detective and forms an uneasy alliance with the beautiful Penelope Marinos, formerly O'Hara's PA. A rogue intelligence agent becomes his target and Hardy stumbles upon a terrible secret that draws them into a violent - and disturbing - confrontation.
In his latest investiagion, private eye Cliff Hardy comes to the aid of retired senior policeman and longtime friend, Frank Parker. Haunted by a case from his early career involving two doctors, Parker needs Hardy to uncover the truth and find out if one of the doctors, now deceased, was wrongly convicted and if Parker was blinded by the passion he had for the presumed-guilty doctor's wife. Granite-faced Hardy discovers that teasing out the truth is not easy as he sorts through old memories, aging names and faces, and his friend's guilt while encountering the likes of dodgy plastic s.
A high-octane addition to a widely praised seriesHardy loses his investigator's licence - does this spell the end of the road for Cliff Hardy? 'Hardy has seen off many imitators and lives to drive his beloved Falcon another day.' - The Sunday Age
Wealthy Frederick Farmer died when his weekender burned to the ground. Death by accident, the police found. But his daughter, Dr Elizabeth Farmer, a feisty academic who resembles the younger Germaine Greer, hires Cliff Hardy to investigate. Is her only motive jealousy of her father's attractive second wife, now very rich? Hardy's search takes him from the Illawarra escarpment to Wollongong and Port Kembla, and the police are far from co-operative as he tries to unravel the truth. He has his hands full when a panic-stricken call leads to a second case the search for the precocious daughter of Marisha Karatsky, an exotic, dark-eyed interpreter who gets well and truly under Hardy's guard. Hardy has narrow escapes and people die as his probing hits nerves. Corrupt cops, compromised insurance agents, feral bikies as well as a few good guys are drawn into the maelstrom. Hardy battles on through personal turmoil and vicious opposition with all outcomes uncertain and justice a remote ideal. 'I don't know how many Cliff Hardy novels there are, but there aren't enough.' - Kerry Greenwood, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. 'Hardy is a wonderful creation still, under Corris's magisterial narrative control, capable of those odd echoes and resonances, the elegiac interludes, that characterise the best crime writing.' - Graeme Blundell, THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN. 'There has been no more efficient, entertaining and amusing writer of detective thrillers in Australia than Peter Corris.' - THE AGE.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Gareth Greenway wasn't all he seemed, but Cliff Hardy was used to that. What he wasn't used to was the shadowy world Greenway leads him into: neurosurgeons, mental patients, AIDS sufferers, all negotiating a landscape of dreams and delusions. An old friend of Hardy's ends up dead while Hardy chases the shadows, catching some, losing others. The accompanying stories find Hardy on more familiar ground. When organised crime, political corruption and the Australian army are involved, Hardy battles the odds. But when it comes to a man-to- man contest, put your money on Hardy to win.
A missing teenager, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta. Can Cliff Hardy find out what's really going on?
Private Investigator Cliff Hardy's 39th case sees him leaving the mean streets of Sydney for Newcastle, investigating what a famous 19th century shipwreck has to do with a multi-million dollar heist with a cast of characters that shouldn't be trusted. 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' This wasn't Hardy's usual brief--uncover the mysteries of a nineteenth-century shipwreck--but he could do with an easy case and the retainer was generous. But is it ever that simple? Not with a notorious crime family tearing itself apart, and an undercover cop playing both sides against the middle. These and an alluring but fiercely ambitious female journalist give Hardy all the trouble he can handle. 'Ever feel manipulated?' Hardy asks. The body count mounts up as he pushes closer to the truth about the mystery and the loot.
A missing teenager, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta. Can Cliff Hardy find out what's really going on? 'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Will one man's loss be Hardy's gain? 'I'd read about it in the papers, heard the radio reports and seen the TV coverage and then forgotten about it, the way you do with news stories.' A missing girl, drugs, yachts, the sex trade and a cold trail that leads from Sydney to Norfolk Island, Byron Bay and Coolangatta. The police suspect the father, Gerard Fonteyn OA, a wealthy businessman. But he's hired Cliff to find her, given him unlimited expenses and posted a $250,000 reward for information. Finally there's a break - an unconfirmed sighting of Juliana Fonteyn, alive and well. But as usual, nothing is straightforward. Various other players are in the game - and Cliff doesn't know the rules, or even what the game might be. He's determined to find out, and as the bodies mount up the danger to himself and to Juliana increases.
The godfather of Australian crime fiction.' Cliff Hardy is stony broke, which makes it hard to resist a job from the man he's been losing money to. Ted Tarleton is a rich bookie with a beautiful, spoiled daughter who's gone missing, and Ted wants Hardy to find her. Her boyfriend is no help, and Hardy faces opposition from all sides as he delves into the increasingly violent wreckage of Noni's past.
When rich, attractive Lorraine Master hires Cliff Hardy to investigate the circumstances surrounding her husband's conviction for smuggling heroin from New Caledonia, Hardy welcomes the assignment. A week on generous expenses sniffing about under a tropical sky, escape from a cold, dry spell in Sydney just the job. But Stewart Master's mates in Noumea prove to be a difficult and dangerous bunch. The danger follows Hardy back to Sydney where he and his client become targets when an intricate conspiracy goes seriously wrong. Hardy deals with a tricky lawyer, a man on the run and Sydney's most corrupt ex-cop. He has allies as well, but in the end his survival will depend on his own guts, experience and savvy. Peter Corris's world weary but always charismatic hero Cliff Hardy has long been established as Australia's favourite investigator. Often bloodied but never bowed in this latest gripping novel, Hardy's legions of fans will relish another pacy adventure, branching further afield than his traditional mean streets territory to the steamy island paradise of French New Caledonia. 'There has been no more efficient, entertaining and amusing writer of detective thrillers in Australia than Peter Corris.' - The Age.
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