Peter Corris

Corris, Peter

Torn Apart

Hardy has never been much of a family man, so when he meets his second cousin Patrick Malloy it's like being hit with a left hook to the solar plexus—Malloy is his double. Cliff and his cousin become friends and travel to attend a gathering of the Irish Travellers, the gypsy-like folk from...Read more

The Dunbar Case

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...Read more

Deep Water

Stripped of his private detective license and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the U.S. 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...Read more

See You At The Toxteth

A selection of stories featuring Australia's favourite PI, plus unpublished writing by Peter Corris on crime.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

Appeal Denied

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

Open File

Cliff Hardy, with his PI license 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. As he starts reading he’s thrown back to his investigation of the disappearance of Justin...Read more

The Undertow

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...Read more

Master's Mates

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

The Black Prince

Sex, sport and steroids - an explosive mix.

They called him the Black Prince. Southwestern Uni's top athlete, Clinton seemed to have it all: he was destined for sporting stardom and lucky in love - then it all went terribly wrong.

Now Clinton won't rest until he's...Read more

The Big Score

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

Salt And Blood

I reached gingerly to the back of my head and felt the blood in my hair and the tenderness underneath it. How do they check if a footballer's concussed? Ask him if knows what day it is. I thought I did. I was pretty sure.

An old flame, Glen Withers, has come back into Cliff Hardy...Read more

Taking Care of Business

Private investigator Cliff Hardy is no financial genius, but in this collection of hard-boiled detective stories he pursues white-collar criminals with the same doggedness he applies to his more downmarket villains. A conveniently placed telephone book advertisement leads Hardy to begin...Read more

Casino

Cliff Hardy is flattered to be offered the job as head of security at the new Sydney casion. But the thought of office hours and wearing a suit put him off and her refuses in facour of his friend, Scot Galvani.

When Galvani is murdered and the police are indifferent and the widow...Read more

The Coast Road

Cliff Hardy trades the mean streets of Sydney for the Illawarra escarpment, a rugged undeveloped area of Australia, in this latest hard-boiled detective novel. First hired by the daughter of the late, wealthy Frederick Farmer to investigate his mysterious and fiery death, Hardy is then...Read more

Follow The Money

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...Read more

Wet Graves

The third adventure of the Australian private detective pits Cliff Hardy against a serial killer who haunts the waters underneath the Sydney Harbor Bridge, disposing of elderly men.Read more

Silent Kill

The new installment in the long-running Cliff Hardy thrillers 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. Sure enough, a murder and a...Read more

That Empty Feeling

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.

One case still haunts Hardy

Legendary PI Cliff Hardy has reached an age when the obituaries have become...Read more

Gun Control

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

Saving Billie

Private investigator Cliff Hardy tackles one of his most difficult cases yet in this gripping detective novel that finds him in the far southwestern suburbs of Sydney. When a journalist hires him to find Billie Merchant, a woman with incriminating information about media-giant Joanas...Read more

Forget Me If You Can

Even when he's not involved in a major case, PI Cliff Hardy's life is far from routine. The 20th Cliff Hardy mystery. In these stories a whistleblower is himself betrayed, a son turns against his father, brothers feud, men are harassed by women, and things are never quite what they seem....Read more

Win, Lose or Draw

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

Beware of the Dog

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

Burn

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

The Washington Club

The Washington Club takes Cliff Hardy, Australia's favourite PI, to the edge. He might never work again.

Claudia Fleischman is beautiful, rich, intelligent... and has just been charged with the murder of her developer husband.

Hardy, hired to look into the background...Read more

Comeback

Cliff Hardy has his PI licence back - but does he still have what it takes to cut it on the mean streets of Sydney?

Cliff reckons the skills are still there, if a little rusty, and actor Bobby Forrest's case looks promising. Bobby's a nice-enough guy, but why is...Read more

Lugarno

Drug-dealing and corruption are at the center of Cliff Hardy's 24th case  

I was about to punch in the number when a man loomed up beside me. When I say loomed I mean loomed—he was tall and wide with a shaven head, and the pale hand that plucked the mobile...Read more

The Reward

Cliff Hardy is distracted by a romantic entanglement, but low on funds, and with his private investigator's licence restored, he is persuaded to take on a dubious case - a scheme to claim the reward on an abduction. When one of those involved is murdered, the problem takes a whole new turn...Read more

The Other Side Of Sorrow

Corruption, murder and a missing girl: routine for Cliff Hardy - except this time it's personal.

Cliff Hardy is stunned to get a phone call from his ex-wife Cynthia. It's been over 20 years since she last shouted she never wanted to see him again... and she was never a woman to...Read more

Aftershock

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

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