Old Games, Fiona Hardy

The morally flexible PI team of Alice and Teddy are back in a perfectly bonkers scenario in Fiona Hardy’s new novel Old Games.

Alice and Teddy, introduced to readers in the excellent Unbury the Dead, are best mates and private investigators who work for ‘Choker’, a man with an eclectic team of people who help him keep things on his version of the straight and narrow.

Choker runs what is essentially a criminal enterprise, even if he peppers it with a lot of above-board jobs as well (private detection, chauffeuring, security, delivery), and he does so with the façade of a man who is just an everyday kind of boss running an everyday kind of company. He wears glasses with no prescription, depending on his mood, and suits that cover his sailor-adjacent tattoos. He doesn’t have any gold teeth, he jokes around, throws Christmas parties, has a HR department and a free psychologist on staff if anybody needs to have a talk after breaking somebody’s arm.

Not that Alice or Teddy have any problems at all with moral ambiguity – they are physically capable and emotionally flexible so up for just about any job, as long as nothing ever threatens their loved ones: Alice’s husband, who still thinks she’s a chauffeur, and her adored young daughter Cherry, and Teddy’s more complicated but much-loved extended family.

On the face of it, there’s nothing particularly different about the assignment that Choker sets for Alice and Teddy, aside from it fitting the requisite oddness required for this series. It’s a lost (or stolen) property case, after all. Although the property is an urn containing the ashes of world-famous tennis player Ashley ‘Perry’ Perrineau, stolen from the mantelpiece of his palatial home, now occupied by his grieving widower and a retinue of people who come and go, none of whom seem to have had motive or opportunity to make off with the ashes.

So the investigation sounds a doddle for two women who are used to dealing with all sorts and rarely fazed by anything.

The man closed his eyes in obvious relief. Alice and Teddy pulled him out of the boot and dumped him in the dirt, then cut off the tape around his arms and feet. He crouched unsteadily, and they waited while he got used to standing.

Although emotions can get to them, and because it turns out that Alice’s estranged sister Patricia (‘Pick’) is also involved, things get messy. Very messy indeed. Which is Alice and Teddy’s comfort zone normally, although this time things just might get under their skins.

Not being 100 per cent sure where to start an investigation like this, Alice and Teddy go with what they know. Poke around, annoy a few people and see who comes after them. An approach the deceased’s husband, Suneet, finds confronting, as they seem to be constantly showing up and asking difficult questions. It’s been quite a few years now since Perry died, supposedly in an accidental fall at Mount Martha. Suneet has since moved on with another partner, but still harbours raw and complicated feelings about Perry’s death.

Meanwhile, even if a motive remains very unclear, there’s no shortage of odd suspects:

Perry’s stalker Leonie, an obsessed woman with an attitude you can see from space:

Teddy wondered what had turned Leonie from somebody indifferent to celebrities into something of a stalker of Perry’s. That was, of course, if she was even telling the truth: she was an unreliable narrator, for sure.

Suneet’s new partner, Lewis:

‘How does he feel about having Perry’s ashes in your home?’

‘He doesn’t feel any way about it,’ Suneet told her. ‘He’s a divorcee and I haven’t done away with his ex-wife either.’

Perry’s doubles partner, Mae Harper:

Mae looked her up and down. It was intimidating: Mae had bombshell black hair that was cut with a blunt fringe and a bob, wore red lipstick this day and every other and had the kind of smile that made everyone think it was just for them.

Perry’s accountant and old friend Kirk, a man who turns out to have a very dodgy reputation:

… then Alice said, ‘Kirk, why did you assault Suneet at the party?’

It took a long moment for Kirk’s professionalism to quarrel with his rage …

Sculptress Aviva Leigh Freeman:

A woman stood on the staircase, holding a microphone aloft as if she was the statue of liberty … She stood beside a life-size picture of Perry’s statue in situ at Melbourne Park.

Perry’s nephew, and sometime house sitter Ludo (who also happens to be a cop on ‘under investigation’ leave):

‘… Ludo was here the whole time, or he set the alarm when he left. I know he was doing it, because I get a notification on my phone when the alarm gets set.’

And finally, but by no means least, Perry’s mother Audrey:

‘She took the ashes once before,’ Lewis said.

It’s a crowded cast for what seems, initially, like a pretty simple assignment. Problems quickly emerge, though, as motives are hard to find, and everybody around Suneet, including Suneet himself, seems to be hiding something or doing a hefty bit of curating of their own.

There are also references to some of the fallout from the first novel. While it might not be necessary for readers to have read the first one to get the gist of what is happening to Alice and Teddy, it would be a pity not to get the full story of these two, and the effort they put into fulfilling a brief (coffins, old hearses and all).

You would describe this series as being on the madcap side of crime fiction, although it shifts easily from dark to light, funny to sobering, on the turn of a page. This is partly because the two main characters are so real and utterly believable. Their close friendship that goes back many years, their personal lives (Alice’s happy / Teddy’s complicated) and their love for each other and their families, as well as pride in their professionalism and abilities, even if it’s not the sort of skillset that you’d be posting to LinkedIn without some hesitation. There’s something unexpectedly uplifting about the idea that two women can ‘curate an itinerary’ that goes seamlessly from a bit of attitude adjustment of the locked-in-the-boot type to childcare pickup singing silly songs and the latest kid obsessions. These are multi-talented, multi-tasking women at their best. And frequently funniest.

Most of the action in Old Games takes place on the Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne, which means a lot of driving, and a lot of time for reflective conversation. While Alice and Teddy can’t solve all the problems of the world, they do eventually solve the problem of the missing ashes, as well as Teddy’s in-hiding cousin, the car that keeps showing up wherever they go, and a few other stray but pressing questions along the way.

Delightful, funny, silly, emotional and utterly engaging, this is one of those series of novels you just hope continues on.