- It's holiday season so time to indulge in some popular fiction. Crime writer Garry Disher is always a reliable bloke to go to. I've particularly loved his Constable Hirsch novels over the years. They're set in rural Australia, and the picture he paints of the harsh outback is so accurate and convincing. And the characters are real. I should know - I grew up there.
- In this new novel he immerses us in the poor economic circumstances of the rural community. There's an air of hopelessness everywhere. Small towns, farms and stations are coping with drought, meaningless council regulations, the closure and merger of schools, increasing interest rates, and struggling retailers. The inhabitants, most of them in the older age bracket, are angry at what they perceive is the unfairness of it all.
- Constable Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch) is a local cop and his workload is huge. He spends much of his time travelling on deserted roads to towns and local properties. Disher provides plenty of fascinating details on his investigations, meetings, interviews, and his relationships with other police in the region. ‘Hirsch was a patient, listening kind of cop, not a lazy, violent kind…informing a parent, partner or close friend that a loved one had been killed…through meth, booze, speeding, hooning…’.
- The background context of the novel is the local Council and how corrupt it is. There is racism everywhere. The self-important female mayor is constantly clamping down on Indigenous groups and activism. And there's a group of right wing agitators called ‘My Place’ who are anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination and freedom of movement obsessed. They believed Councils were ‘corporate entities set in undermining property rights. Therefore council rates, taxes and fines were invalid’. The mayor's wealthy landowning husband is as crooked as they come.
- And when the remains of a dead father and a missing mother from 6 years ago are found by their daughter, Hirsch is sucked in and it's dangerous terrain. The tension builds as all the threads in the story start coming together.
- One thing I've always loved about Garry Disher's crime writing is that his police characters are fully drawn and vividly brought to life. They have complex, often dangerous, jobs and duties but also rich personal lives.
