Challis & Destry

Put a book with Garry Disher's name on the cover down on the table at our place and there's bound to be a bit of sighing from certain quarters.  Fair enough, it normally means that all forms of communication will cease until the book is finished.  Whilst I will admit a slight preference for the Wyatt series, the Challis and Destry books are getting better and better with each outing.  I particularly like the way that the focus is switching between the two main characters, and their romance is developing but not taking over from what is, after all, an excellent police procedural.  I've even forgiven Disher from moving Waterloo from Central West Victoria to way down on the Peninsula!

In WHISPERING DEATH there's a lot happening on the Peninsula.  A rapist in a police uniform, a serial armed robber and a very talented cat burglar.  There's also Ellen Destry's trip overseas, the problems of a classic sports car finally starting to fall apart, disposing of a now restored airplane, the bikie's living next door to Destry's new house, and how her daughter is handling her mother's growing relationship with Hal Challis.  There's also the little matter of his major spray to a journalist about Government funding of the police service in an area where the population is rapidly expanding.  Which does not go down well with his bosses.

Whilst the main investigation - into the rapist wearing a police uniform proceeds, there's a cat burglar working her way around Australia.  Normally she does not work in her own state - keeping her backyard clean.  It's particularly important on the Peninsula as she keeps a safety deposit box down there.  Cautious, she's also one step ahead of her old mentor who is very very keen to even some scores.  The fact that an armed robber seems to be heading in their direction just adds to the increasing workload that Challis is already less than happy about - especially as the station is desperately short of resources.  So short of resources even investigating the rather creative graffiti showing up on large gateposts is a bit of stretch.

WHISPERING DEATH is written in that beautifully dry, laconic style that Disher has bought to these police procedurals.  He also does such a great line in caustic social commentary - be it in Challis having a go about politicians or to the nature of the graffiti showing up on those enormous (perfectly ridiculous really) property entrances that seem to have become the scourge of the tree / sea change areas.  Graffiti with a social conscience and a particularly fine sense of the humour.

WHISPERING DEATH, as in earlier books, also gives the supporting cast of characters a bit of time in the limelight.  The idea that the book's have central characters that have lives alongside the jobs, that the supporting cast are people in their own right and stuff happens to them, and that there's never just one thing at a time going on in any district really works.  Without giving too much away, there's even a series of coincidences in the resolutions which are just delicious - there's nothing contrived about the way that everything eventually sorts itself out.  

The one thing that really stands out after reading WHISPERING DEATH is just how deftly the complicated storylines were interwoven with the character's own stories (police and crooks), with no loss of pace, and no chance that the reader would be bamboozled.  I was particularly struck by just how cleverly this plot was put together, the way that each particular divergence was timed nicely.  

There is simply no better way to spend some time ignoring everything and everybody around you, than reading the latest offering from one of the best writers of Australian Crime Fiction around.

When 10 year old Katie Blasko goes missing, Ellen Destry is in charge of the case. Katie's from one of the local Estates – a poor, run-down area full of dysfunctional families, violence and drugs. Nearly everybody on the investigation team is pretty sure that Katie's disappearance is yet another family out of control - Katie's either fallen prey to her mother's de facto, she's run away, or any of the other things that happen all too frequently to little kids on the Estate. Ellen Destry's not so sure, she's got this feeling that Katie's been abducted and she's got this nagging concern about rumours that have been flying about a paedophile ring on the Peninsula. She's also more than aware that the powers that be in Waterloo Police Station are not convinced she's up to running an investigation of this type. What makes her really sensitive to their thoughts, is that she's agrees with them.

Hal Challis, however, can't be much help. He's half-way across Australia, in the outback of South Australia, watching his elderly and frail father die. He's also wondering what happened to his brother in law who disappeared a few years before, his car found abandoned in the outback. Hal's sister has always thought he did a runner, after all, she's been receiving strange correspondence which seemed to indicate he was somewhere, alive. Hal's not so sure and, because he can't help himself, he intervenes.

Having read all of Garry Disher's Challis series, CHAIN OF EVIDENCE stands out as the best book thus far – at least for me. There is a deftness in the drawing of the two separate plots, and the characters that gave this book a real focus and tension. The main plot, the possible abduction of the young girl is intricate, complicated and involves the Waterloo Police Station in a number of unexpected ways. The complications of the relationship (or lack of relationship) between Challis and Destry has an extra level of interest because of the physical distance between the two characters. Another element was, what seemed like, a deliberate choice of the types of investigations for both characters – Challis is a dry, sparse, reserved man investigating an old disappearance in a dry, reserved, desert edge town. Destry is a more emotional, complicated, outgoing woman, investigating a messy, complicated and intricate crime in a lusher, familiar environment. In this instance, this didn't resonate as a cliché.

CHAIN OF EVIDENCE flags a strong shift of focus from a series concentrating on Hal Challis, with a touch of Ellen Destry on the side, to a combined focus as both characters take centre stage, albeit in different investigations and in different states. This bodes very well for the ongoing development of this series.

The Hal Challis series is really growing into something particularly interesting, as well as entertaining.  There's a distinct edge to this story, there are obviously some issues which the author wants to talk about, and he's cleverly worked a number of elements of social observation and commentary into what is, overall, a good solid police procedural.

Hal and Ellen's romantic interest at the end of the last book has developed into a live-in relationship.  Which has a number of complications - not just that they work together and that Hal is Ellen's boss.  Ellen's divorce is only just completed, and as attracted as she is to Hal, living together is an unexpected experience that she's struggling with.  And the rest of the team are well aware of what's going on, even if the whole thing is not spoken of.  The brass is also less than impressed, but they have given Hal a way out of the situation which he needs to decide on whilst he's also juggling a number of simultaneous investigations.

The unit is busy.  It is Schoolies Week and Waterloo has become one of the destinations for groups of celebrating teenagers in recent years, and the workload for the police increases as a result.  Whilst most of the lower ranks are fully occupied with Schoolie liaison and investigating minor crimes, there are occasional bigger problems like assault and in particular sexual assault.  Nobody necessarily thinks that the vicious bashing of a local private school chaplain is connected to the Schoolies, although it could be possible.   What is definitely known is that the victim's brother works for the local Member of Parliament, and he's a Pollie not adverse to a spot of police bashing and throwing his weight around.  Things get even more complicated in that case when a racial motive is unearthed.

Meanwhile a local planning officer is having family problems of her own.  Her husband is obsessed and a bully - following her constantly, criticising her constantly, carping and harping at her all the time.  She's also got a job that sometimes makes her unpopular, either enforcing breaches of planning law, or in one case, failing to stop the demolishing of a much loved old landmark.

The storylines provide a real possibility for some particularly pithy - and frequently funny - digs at things that can go very wrong when places of natural beauty start to attract a lot of people.  In particular, people who seem hell-bent on destroying the things that attracted them in the first place.  There is also some very elegant commentary about corruption, privilege, and overt and tacky displays of wealth, dotted throughout.  By no means overpowering or distracting from the investigation, this social observation adds a layer of understanding about the area, and the people on all sides of the investigations.

It is a complicated series of threads - the bashing assault of the chaplain; a bludgeoned body; sexual assault within the Schoolies; a young man who picked on the wrong girl last year; and an unsavoury event within the investigation team.  All of these threads make the story busy, but not messy; the team feels stretched but not unexpectedly or unreasonably so; and the resolutions aren't impossible (or too easy) to deduce as you go along.

The fifth book in the Hal Challis and Ellen Destry series, BLOOD MOON is another of those great, solid, entertaining, engaging chore-stopper books.  Whilst it could stand on its own, if you haven't read any of the earlier books, then track them down at the same time.  Reading the entire series does give you a feeling for how it's growing into its early promise.

• The Dragon Man
• Kittyhawk Down
• Snapshot
• Chain of Evidence
• Blood Moon