Reading Notes - Comeback by Peter Corris

‘Cliff Hardy, I heard you’d retired.’ Marcia had the voice all brothel receptionist have – smooth, reassuring, comforting, designed to put the punters at their ease.
‘I’m making a comeback. Is Ruby available?’

Comeback (Allen & Unwin, 2011) is the 37th book in the outstanding Cliff Hardy series (if you count the two short story collections) and continues the rocky life of the Sydney-based private detective. No matter what type of setback is placed in his way, whether it be loss of partners, severe medical conditions or the loss of his licence, Cliff manages to continue to prove that he is the ultimate survivor and struggles on in typical gritty style.

In recent times Cliff Hardy has been somewhat at a loss to decide what to do with himself thanks to the loss of his private inquiry agent’s licence. But a recent High Court ruling has found that life bans are unconstitutional which provides Cliff with the motivation he needs to reapply for his licence and, with a little bit of help from old friend and lawyer Viv Garner, quickly sets up his practice in a new office and with a rekindled outlook.

The first case in the new practice involves a young actor, Bobby Forrest, who wants to hire Hardy because he believes he is the victim of a stalker. He is unable to identify the stalker and this intrigues Hardy enough for him to take the case.

I’d had the house a long time, ever since my marriage to Cyn, and it was imbued with memories, some bad, mostly good. I’d made love there, spilt blood and had some of my own spilt. There’s been times when I was flush with money and other times, like now, when funds were low. I knew I should find a way to shake all this loose and go somewhere else, but I was back in business and somehow that seemed to make keeping the house and the memories all the more important.

Although Hardy diligently follows Forrest from place to place to get a handle on who is stalker might
be, he is unprepared for the attack when it comes. He is left with a dead client, a police detective who is particularly unimpressed and a burning need to finish his investigation. The case that started out as a protection gig develops into a hunt for a murderer.

What Hardy discovers is that the case was more complex than he was first led to believe. He has to work his way through the jealous love triangle and unravel the tangle of rage, disappointment and acts of revenge before he can move on to working out who might have wanted to kill Bobby Forrest.

Hardy is relentless, which is the quality that has made him such an enduringly popular character. He is undeterred by the fact that his case appears to flounder and change perspective and, if anything, finds himself more galvanised into action. This is the Cliff Hardy that keeps the readers coming back for more.

I wasn’t sleeping well. A matter of loneliness and a feeling that I wasn’t accomplishing as much as  I should. So I was happy about making an early start. They say everyone is working longer hours these days and I assumed it applied to people in the security business, especially senior people if they wanted to stay senior. And why not me as well?

What is made obvious as Comeback unfolds is that Cliff Hardy is back and ready to continue on for quite a few more cases yet. He has been able to adapt to the modern world with the online presence and modern technologies required to survive. His old-fashioned detective skills are still relevant and equip him with the arsenal to get the job done.

Most importantly, he still has the passion and the fire to perform strongly and this is not only important for him as a character but is also important for the reader because it ensures that Cliff Hardy remains believable.

There is a shift in pace in the way Comeback unfolds and it is more methodical in the way in which Hardy goes about his investigations. Put this down to his advancing age, but also to the years of experience he has had in his job. Cliff can still dish out the punishment but he is also taking his knocks and has to spend more time in the gym to keep himself fit. The medication that he is taking for his heart trouble (Deep Water) highlights the fact that this is a guy dealing with real life issues and just trying to do his job to scratch out a living the best way he knows how.

Find a listing of the entire Cliff Hardy series as well as other works by visiting the Peter Corris page at Crime Down Under. Get all of the official news and information by checking out the Peter Corris website.

Deep Water by Peter Corris

The 34th book in Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy private detective series titled Deep Water was released a couple of weeks ago on 30 March by Allen & Unwin. Here is a series that has stood the test of time developing consistently from the first book (The Dying Trade).

My review, containing some of my thoughts about the book can be found on the Deep Water page at Crime Down Under.

Meanwhile, here is the Media Release that will give you the incentive to go out and get yourself a copy of Deep Water.

In a case of art mirroring life, the latest instalment in Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy series, Deep Water, sees the beloved Hardy undergo a quadruple heart bypass after suffering a life threatening heart attack.

Author, Peter Corris, underwent the same heart operation last year, obviously influencing the direction of the Cliff Hardy series.

However, the similarities stop there as Cliff Hardy gets drawn into a missing person's investigation, after the father of his nurse, Margaret McKinley, goes missing.

The search for renowned geologist, Dr Henry McKinley, takes Hardy behind the scenes at one of Sydney's biggest basin aquifers and ignites the wrath of local big buisness that stand to lose even bigger money if Hardy's discoveries are revealed.

Ignoring the threat to his life from both his health and his enemies, Hardy is determined to uncover the truth no matter how deep the water he finds himself in.

Except from the book.

The following excerpt from Deep Water gives a little bit of an insight into Cliff Hardy and what has made him so popular for so long.

A few days later, installed back in my house and with outstanding correspondence and obligations, mostly financial but also social and medical, dealt with, I called on Hank in his Newtown office to talk over the Henry McKinley matter. I climbed the familiar stairs from King Street bu tnow a fluorescent light made them more negotiable. As I was making my way up a man coming down fast bumped into me and almost knocked me off balance.

'Terribly sorry,' he said. 'Are you all right, sir?'

I was until you called me sir, I thought. I nodded and he went down, turning at the bottom of the stairs to look back. I signalled to him and went on.

If you want to find out more about Deep Water by Peter Corris you can also visit Inside Story where Shane Maloney has written an outstanding article about Deep Water, Cliff Hardy and Peter Corris.

Reading : The Big Score by Peter Corris

I’m currently reading the latest Cliff Hardy book by Peter Corris, The Big Score. This is another collection of short stories featuring the tough Sydney private enquiry agent.

The stories are obviously fairly recent because Cliff has the use of a mobile phone, doesn’t smoke, uses Viv Garner as his solicitor and is going out with Lily. But they also fall before his last novel, Appeal Denied, because Cliff still holds his PEA license.

I am partway through the 5th of 11 stories that make up the book and they have all been consistently punchy, running to around 10 pages per story. As in real life, not all of Cliff’s investigations end neatly or satisfactorily, often times we just have to content in knowing who dunnit and how rather than the fact that they are going to pay for doing it.

Each story exhibits the usual display of guts and/or ingenuity on Hardy’s part and, for fans of the series, continues on the solid tradition that has made the series so popular for so long in which Hardy wades in boots and all and bugger the sensitivities of those around him.

Book Details:
The Big Score by Peter Corris
pub. Allen & Unwin
ISBN. 9781741752236
214 pages

The Cliff Hardy series : The Dying Trade

The Cliff Hardy series written by Peter Corris is now over 30 books strong and forms a formidable cornerstone for Australian detective writing. Back in 1980 Cliff was introduced to the world as a hard-drinking tough guy with a ready wit that he was willing to unleash on deserving stuffed shirts. This article is the first in a series that will map Cliff’s development through the years and will present and dissect each book, highlighting notable quotes, the appearance of regular characters and other features important in the sculpting of Australia’s foremost fictional detective.



Indroducing Cliff Hardy

We meet Cliff Hardy in the exact spot from where all private detectives worth their salt should be introduced, behind his shabby desk in his shabby office. In this case no-one walks into his office, instead the phone rings and he is summonsed to the home of Bryn Gutteridge at Vaucluse, one of Sydney’s most exclusive addresses.

Quite a lot can be gleaned about Cliff Hardy from the very opening paragraph of the series, aspects about his life that would come up numerous times throughout the next 30 books:

“I was feeling fresh as a rose that Monday at 9.30 a.m. My booze supply had run out on Saturday night. I had no way of replenishing it on the Sabbath because we still had Sunday prohibition in Sydney then. I didn’t have a club; that’d gone a while before, along with my job as an insurance investigator. I also didn’t have a wife – not any more – or friends with well-filled refrigerators. Unless I could be bothered driving twenty-five miles to become a bona fide traveller, Sunday could be as dry as a Mormon meeting hall. I didn’t travel. I spent the day on Bondi beach and the evening with tonic water and Le Carre, so I was clear-headed and clean-shaven, doodling on the desk blotter, when the phone rang.”

He doesn't mention her by name (yet) but his ex-wife Cyn is briefly spoken of. Cyn appears in a short story in Heroin Annie, but she is constantly in Hardy's thoughts and is mentioned at some point in the majority of the books. One gets the feeling he never really gets over her.

A feature of many of the Cliff Hardy books is the way in which the locale is described through Hardy’s eye. He warms things up in The Dying Trade when he visits the exclusive suburb of Vaucluse.

Vaucluse is several million tons of sandstone sticking out into Port Jackson. The sun shines on it and the residents think it vulgar to talk about the view. I permitted myself a few vulgar thoughts as I pushed my old Falcon along the sculptured divided highway which wound up to the tasteful mansions and shaved lawns.

We get a description of Cliff from the man himself as he is about to meet his first client:

The rich always have lots of mirrors in their houses because they like what they see in them. We passed at least six full-length jobs on the trek which put expensive frames around a thinnish man with dark wiry hair, scuffed suede shoes and an air of not much money being spent on upkeep.

And it’s always fun to examine the experience of someone being knocked out as long as it’s not ourselves. When it comes to Cliff Hardy, this is the first of many such instances:

I caught a glimpse of a man with a bandaged face sitting on a bed before I felt like I’d been dumped by a gigantic wave : a ton of metal tried to tear my head from my shoulders and sandbags crashed into my belly and knees. I went down into deep dark water watching a pin-point of light which dimmed, dimmed and died.

Hardy becomes introspective as the case becomes complicated:

The villain was in custody as they say, but villains were coming out of the woodwork and the past was sending out tentacles which were winding around the
necks of people living and dying in the present. It’s a dying trade I’m in.

Plot Summary

Cliff is hired by Bryn Gutteridge because his sister is being harassed via threatening phone calls and letters. She is so affected by the harassment that she has checked herself into a clinic where she is undergoing treatment to deal with the shock. It’s Cliff’s job to find the source of the calls and report back to Gutteridge.

In short order Cliff initiates 2 explosive confrontations the like of which fans of the series will become used to as typical of Hardy’s aggressive style. The first of these comes when he intercedes in a domestic dispute between Ailsa Sleeman (Bryn and Susan Gutteridge’s stepmother) and her toy boy, chucking the bloke in the backyard swimming pool. The second comes when he shows up at the Longueville clinic to see Susan, confronts the clinic’s owner, Dr Ian Brave, pushing his weight around and getting himself knocked out for the first time in the series.

By the time he scrapes himself up and makes it home nursing the first impressions he has made, Bryn Gutteridge rings to call him off the case in fear for his life. Hard on the heels of this setback comes a call from Ailsa Sleeman – she now wants to hire Hardy after an attempt is made on her life. Some major upheaval was taking place in the whole family and Cliff is now well and truly roped into it.

What follows is a case that grows in complexity as Gutteridge family secrets are unearthed and picked apart revealing the kind of intrigue that threatens to rip it completely apart. Fortunately with Cliff Hardy’s sharp mind complemented by an even sharper tongue we are guided through a mystery that culminates in the most amazing (and unexpected) ending.

Random Facts of Interest
The following are peculiarities about Hardy that you will find are updated as the series progresses

• Cliff’s office is located in St Peters St, Kings Cross.
  
• He lives in a small two-storey sandstone terrace in Glebe close to the dog track.
  
• His fees are $200 retainer plus $60 a day expenses.
  
• He smokes roll-your-own cigarettes.
  
• Drinking plays a major part in Cliff’s life at this stage. It appears that Peter Corris intended to give Hardy all of the PI vices common to the great hardboiled detectives.
  
• He drives an old Ford Falcon and parks it in the backyard of a tattoo parlour for $10 a week.
  
• He is knocked out by a blow to the back of the head once in this book.
  
• His first wife – Cyn – is mentioned twice by name during the course of The Dying Trade and is referred to in the opening paragraph.

The Cast

Bryn Gutteridge - Cliff's first client, a rich bastard living in Vaucluse.
Susan Gutteridge - Bryn's brother, Cliff first meets her in a clinic where she is undergoing psychiatric treatment.
Dr Ian Brave - psychologist who runs the clinic in Longueville.
Ailsa Sleeman - stepmother of Bryn and Susan, she will later hire Cliff when her life is threatened. She also provides a brief romantic interlude for our intrepid investigator.
Harry Tickener - an up and coming journalist who was caught tailing Cliff. This will be far from the last time we meet this resourceful hack.
Grant Evans - Cliff's contact in the NSW Police Force.

Note: If you have a copy of a book with a cover that is different to the covers displayed in this article would you mind emailing me a copy of the cover please.

Technical Notes

First Edition : Hardcover
Publisher : McGraw Hill Book Company
Date Published : 1980
ISBN : 0 07 072928X
No pages : 229

Next book : White Meat

Review : Appeal Denied by Peter Corris

Title : Appeal Denied

Author : Peter Corris

Publisher : Allen & Unwin

Date Published : 2007

ISBN-13 : 9781741750966

Sub-Genre : Detective

Protagonist : Cliff Hardy

The many cases in which Cliff Hardy has had to tread the fine line between legal and illegal have finally caught up with the Sydney detective. Appeal Denied is the 31st book in Peter Corris’ popular hardboiled detective series but the times are a-changing and Cliff’s days look to be numbered.

The police have been looking for opportunities to take Hardy’s licence and it has finally happened with an appeal to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal failing. He is left to ponder his life ahead with no job, no prospects and the bills continuing to arrive.

Cliff Hardy has never had any dealings with the Northern Crime Unit based in Sydney but he is less than impressed with the murder investigation they are running, an investigation that he has a personal stake in. Having lost his enquiry licence he’s not supposed to engage in any official investigative work but there is simply no way he is going to sit idly by and let a killer get clean away.

With the help of media personality and investigative reporter Lee Townsend he begins poking around and it doesn’t take long for the whiff of police corruption to start wafting out. Townsend then introduces Hardy to Detective Constable Jane Farrow who tells him of a long and sordid history of extortion and payoffs that have been commonplace in the day to day operation of the Northern Crime Unit. And the taint goes right up to the top.

Cliff is a man possessed, stoked with rage and desperate to unleash his anger on someone. He has been cut loose with nothing to get in his way and no reason to spend time at home or at his office. The prospect of possibly being hunted by dirty cops also keeps him on the move and this ensures that his unofficial investigation unfolds quickly.

Trust is a big problem for Hardy during this case, not knowing whether there is anyone he can rely on. First he meets Detective Sergeant Colin Williams, lead officer on the murder case and he seems like an honest cop but is quickly removed from the murder inquiry. The cops who replace him are definitely bent. Lee Townsend could be sincere in his quest to uncover the suspected police corruption or maybe he just senses a big story. As for Detective Constable Jane Farrow, Cliff senses something’s not quite right about her but just can’t put his finger on exactly what it is.

The style of Peter Corris is essentially economical with a lean, clear emphasis on the plot, allowing the mood to be relayed to us through Cliff Hardy’s state of mind. It’s obvious that events are beginning to take their toll on Hardy with more frequent reflection on the changes in his life and a questioning of his best way forward from here. He has always been an independent, lonely character but there is an even greater impression of a desire by him to move on.

Hardy is as dogged as ever and as willing to ignore all warnings to quit as he ever has been. In fact, I get the feeling he wouldn’t believe he was doing his job properly if he didn’t get all those warnings and didn’t see people grit their teeth in anger after he has hit them with a comment designed specifically to needle.

His instincts are sharp, he still has friends in high places and he still gets results sailing perilously close to the wrong side of the law. Appeal Denied is a typically brisk detective novel that displays all of the ballsy determination, great planning and seat of the pants execution by its protagonist. There is a marked difference in that the story is tinged with far grater emotion than you usually see from a Cliff Hardy mystery.

For more reviews of Australian crime and mystery novels, visit the Australian Crime Fiction Database.