A selection of stories featuring Australia's favourite PI, plus unpublished writing by Peter Corris on crime.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 he solved his first case in 1980. This selection of stories starts with Cliff's early days driving round Glebe in his battered Falcon, drinking at the Toxteth Hotel and taking on cases that more often than not leave him as battered as his car. As Cliff becomes older and wiser, he prefers to use his head more than his fists, but the cases are as tricky as ever and Hardy's clients lead him to the murkiest surroundings.
To further celebrate Peter Corris's legacy, editor Jean Bedford has also included a selection of his columns on the world of crime and crime writing, along with his 'ABC of Crime Writing'. From Adultery to Yeti, via Gumshoe, Hit man and The Mob, this entertaining compendium gives a fascinating insight into Peter's vast knowledge of the genre.
Peter Corris was the author of nearly ninety books between 1973 and 2017, forty-two of them featuring the legendary Cliff Hardy PI. Other fiction included the 'Creepy' Crawley and Browning series, along with his non-fiction books, including biographies of Fred Hollows and Ray Barrett, and A Round of Golf with Peter Corris.
See You At the Toxteth, Peter Corris
It is more than fitting that the final word from Peter Corris would be curated by his wife, and long-time editor, Jean Bedford. The chosen short stories are perfect examples of his work, and the 'ABC Of Crime Writing' is every bit as insightful, acerbic, funny and thought-provoking as you'd want it to be. The columns from Newtown Review of Books are the icing on the very satisfying cake that is SEE YOU AT THE TOXTETH.
Those of us who were lucky enough to be around when Corris first started writing the Cliff Hardy novels will remember many of the original collections from which the stories in this compendium come - collections such as Heroin Annie (first published in 1984) to The Big Score (published 2007), the stories that Bedford has selected are Corris writing Cliff Hardy at the height of his powers. They show little gems of ideas, perfectly formed into an arc that's punchy and precise, and, as always ended when it should. Never an unnecessary word, never a backwards step, never a flinch. Cliff Hardy in written form.
Right back in 1984 there was something incredibly powerful about the Heroin Annie collection. It wasn't just that we had our own hard-boiled PI by that stage (this was the 5th outing), rather it was something in the assuredness of Cliff Hardy's place in our fictional world. We were offered a series of crisply written, nicely paced, elegantly structured short stories, at just the right time in the evolution of the Hardy character. At that stage they offered new readers a way into a series that would go on to 42 novels in total. They gave reader's a sure fire way of knowing what Cliff stood for, who he was, and why this series would continue to grow. They were perfectly pitched from a publishing point of view, and from a reader's point of view. This current collection starts out (quite rightly) with Man's Best Friend and Silverman (Heroine Annie 1984) moves to The Arms of the Law and Tearaway (The Big Drop 1985), then The Deserter (Man in the Shadows 1988), The Big Lie and The House of Ruby (Burn, and other Stories 1993), Meeting at Mascot (Forget Me If You Can 1997), Black Andy and Death Threats (Taking Care of Business 2004) to finally Last Will and Testament and Break Point (The Big Score 2007). A comprehensive meander through an incredibly long career, in which the deftness of the writing and the standard of the storytelling never wavered. I'd kind of forgotten what a master short story writer Peter Corris was until this collection reminded me.
Then into the ABC of Crime Writing and there were points I cried with laughter, there were points I agreed furiously and points I would have liked to have had an dreamed about opportunity to nitpick over for a while, and there were points were I actually felt a bit like crying. Because then I got to the columns from the Newtown Review of Books and realised that even when his health was failing Peter Corris could knock out words that made you stop and think.
Thanks to Allen & Unwin, Jean Beford and everybody involved in this wonderful collection.
See You At the Toxteth, Peter Corris (review by Andrea Thompson)
“The best of Cliff Hardy, Australia’s legendary PI, with exclusive unpublished writing from Peter Corris on the art of crime fiction…”
You may consider yourself a well-read reader of crime fiction, even of Australian crime fiction (a slimmer yet more determined beast), but it is possible you came here to the Toxteth in order to be schooled by the ‘Godfather’ of Australian crime writing. SEE YOU AT THE TOXTETH is a meticulously curated collection of Peter Corris short stories that snapshot the prolific career of a writer who wrote almost ninety books (fiction, biographies, series, true-crime, the list can go on) over his career. Peter Corris was a writer who consistently showed up, put in the work, and earned a deserved following of crime fiction fans not prepared to tolerate excessive padding, floral descriptions, or the possibility of time being wasted upon ethical examinations.
The evolution of private detective Cliff Hardy from his first appearance in THE DYING TRADE (1980) was a subtle one, illustrated beautifully in this anthology compiled after the 2018 passing of Corris. Make no mistake, Cliff Hardy was created as a hard man and remained one, even as the tide of cultural change and the tweaking of Australian sensibilities shifted us all further to the more compassionate left with what we see, hear and are prepared to tolerate.
Cliff Hardy is a character you’d like to do business with, if there was business to be done that would not necessarily be able to be transacted in polite company. The Sydney town of Cliff Hardy operates on many levels and we see them all over the course of this book. There are large time gaps between the short stories but the selection still has a flow as if we were reading an entire novel about Cliff Hardy, only with many ongoing cases instead of one or two.
Included within SEE YOU AT THE TOXTETH (referencing the Glebe hotel which Hardy frequents in his early days) is the author’s ‘ABC of Crime Writing’. Not necessarily one point to be made per letter mind, and mind you read all of it to appreciate more of the dry tones and firm opinions of Peter Corris the reader, as well as those of Peter Corris the writer.
Corris has a economical style of writing that somehow seems quintessentially Australian, where to sketch a situation vividly and not just for the locals, recognizably, does not rely on the abundance of descriptors. SEE YOU AT THE TOXTETH is the book fans will want to have on their shelves as the last joy that is the reading of the work of the late great Peter Corris. Crime readers, new or well read of Corris, receive this entertaining and sharply written book with gratitude.
Now, see you all back there afterwards at book one.