A selection of stories featuring Australia's favourite PI, plus unpublished writing by Peter Corris on crime.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...Read more
Dirty dealings, corrupt cops, computer geeks and a final showdown at an exclusive Sydney beach - is this Cliff Hardy's last adventure?
Stripped of his investigator's licence and with his appeal denied, Cliff Hardy faces an uncertain future. Then something very personal happens...Read more
In this hard-boiled detective novel, private investigator Cliff Hardy is looking forward to his new assignment. When rich, beautiful Lorraine Master hires him to look into the circumstances surrounding her husband's conviction for smuggling heroin on the island paradise of New Caledonia,...Read more
In this new collection of short stories, Cliff Hardy has his hands full of murder, embezzlement, corruption, and more. His punches and sparse-but-rough language help him untangle a divorce, investigate the killing of a drinking buddy, and take care of a nasty case of blackmail. Set in...Read more
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 -...Read more
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?
Will one man's loss be Hardy's gain?
'I'd read about it in the...Read more
The woman was dangerous, even over the phone. Cliff Hardy knew he should have listened to his instincts when he first met Paula Wilberforce.
Instead he becomes embroiled in a high-society family full of old rivalries and hatred, his gun is stolen and he is wanted in relation to...Read more
This collection of stores finds Cliff Hardy in his usual milieu of inner Sydney mixing with the good, the bad and the quirky as he works on his cases. With his wisecracks and fists in readiness, Hardy goes about his daily business of tracking delinquent arsonists, hired killers and missing...Read more
When Oscar Bach's body was found crushed under rubble, his death was classified as another tragic statistic of the Newcastle earthquake. So how could he have been seen alive five minutes after the quake? Who would want this man dead?
Oscar's quiet life was not all that is...Read more
'Tell me about your first case Cliff. You must remember it.'
'Sure, but Christ, I haven't thought of that in a long, long time.'
'What was it about?'
'Back then? Divorce - what else? But there was a bit of perjury, fraud and murder as well.'
The...Read more
Cliff Hardy returns to the Australian criminal underworld in a short novel and six stories focused on the private investigator
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...Read more
Cliff Hardy is at the party to look after the paintings and throw out the drunks - gently.
But there he meets Helen Broadway, who interests him; and Paul Guthrie, who wants Hardy to look for his stepson, Ray.
Hardy delves into the sleazy Kings Cross backstreets and...Read more
A client happens to fall from the twentieth story 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...Read more
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...Read more
When Cliff Hardy, an Australian private detective, investigates an apparent sighting of John Singer, who disappeared two years ago, he encounters a series of murdersRead more
He's a one-man army for $125 a day, plus expenses, and Hardy was finding his fee harder to earn all the time.
From reformed junkies to high fashion models, from radical politics to corporate, every type of face with every type of problem eventually walked through Hardy's door....Read more
It's no secret that the people who hire Hardy have nowhere else to turn.
Take Lady Catherine Chatterton, widow of the eminent judge. She's desperate to hand down the mantle of her husband's legal reign (not to mention the money) to someone more deserving than her boozy daughter...Read more
'I felt lucky. I was heading for the U.S.A., Hollywood and a million dollars. "Deal the cards, Jesse," I said.'
But not all the cards dealt to Browning turn up trumps. And Richard Browning has a marvellous talent for mucking up even lucky breaks. In fact, he's only really good...Read more
He needs a nice smooth job, something to pay the bills - and keep his glass filled. But smooth this one isn't. Ted Tarleton is a very rich bookie whose beautiful, spoiled daughter, Noni, is missing. Tarleton wants Hardy to find her.
The logical place to start is with Noni's...Read more
Meet Cliff Hardy. Smoker, drinker, ex-boxer. And private investigator. The Dying Trade not only introduces a sleuth who has become an enduring Australian literary legend—the antihero of thirty-seven thrillers—but it is also a long love letter to the seamy side of Sydney itself.Read more
The third collection in the Crimes for a Summer Christmas series, featuring stories by 14 Australian writers, including Elizabeth Jolley, Marion Halligan, Peter Corris, Brian Castro, Marele Day and Jean Bedford.
Richard 'Box Office' Browning, the Australian-born actor, recollects his early days from his decidedly ungraceful old age. The escapades with the famous and the infamous are a delight.Read more
A series of real cases investigated by Australian crime writers who were asked to take a famous Australian murder or mystery - and solve it! Have they really stumbled onto new information, or are their speculations merely fiction?Read more
Is there really such a thing as an innocent person?
Teachers, cops, mothers, wives, everyone has their breaking point; that moment where it could go either way. From the prostitute with no way out, to the bitter author, and a cop who just wants his leave, the characters in this...Read more
When Hardy got himself into hot water in THE UNDERTOW, you just had to wonder if this was the end of Sydney's most famous hard-boiled detective. In APPEAL DENIED he doesn't get his licence to be a private investigator back; he's got no money; his house and car are falling apart and his...Read more
Taking a central theme of "is there really such a thing as an innocent person?" and asking a combination of well known and emerging Crime Fiction Writers from Australia to address the question, has culminated in the creation of CRIME SCENES - a short story collection which works on a number...Read more
There are probably more, but immediate reactions on getting a book of short stories, is that there are precious few Crime Fiction short story collections by Australian authors around (I'm probably about to be proven totally wrong!). But there's something very engaging about a good...Read more
Many years ago there was a specialist bookshop tucked away in Auburn Road, Hawthorn run by a crime fiction expert and massive enabler (I think his name was Malcolm Campbell). He was one of those real-life people that made me thankful I'd made the trek from the bush to the big city, and...Read more
The end of the Cliff Hardy series was announced when WIN, LOSE OR DRAW was released in 2017, and then with the subsequent death of Peter Corris, I made a promise to myself to re-read this excellent series, every year, during the Boxing Day Test, as I'd been doing with every new release....Read more
This book was on my Quest List for such a long time until I finally managed to track down a copy (and was subsequently somewhat startled to find it listed on Fishpond NZ!). The reason it hit the Quest List was the premise sounded so fascinating - take a bunch of real life cases, give them...Read more