Politician Peter January is having trouble staying alive so he hires Cliff Hardy to help him. Hardy dislikes the role of politician's 'security consultant' but he dislikes bombers, hit men and hatemailers even more.
The early 1980s found Cliff Hardy well established as a private investigator but still battling his demons. He has quit smoking and moderated his drinking. The memory of his brief marriage still haunts him along with other ghosts from his past.
Cliff Hardy is stony broke, which makes it hard to resist a job from the man he's been losing money to. Ted Tarleton is a rich bookie with a beautiful, spoiled daughter who's gone missing, and Ted wants Hardy to find her. Her boyfriend is no help, and Hardy faces opposition from all sides as he delves into the increasingly violent wreckage of Noni's past.
Lady Catherine presides over the declining fortunes of the Chatterton estate, which is lacking a suitable heir. When she hears of a grandson she never knew, Cliff Hardy takes the job, reluctantly, of finding him. From the run-down boarding houses of Darlinghurst to the social set of Canberra, Hardy finds the case forcing him into some of the strangest roles a private detective has ever had to play.
Casinos are not to Cliff Hardy's liking, nor is wearing a suit and tie, which is why he turns down the job of head of security at a new Sydney gambling establishment. However, when his friend Scott Galvani takes the job and is then murdered, Hardy feels bound to investigate in the face of police indifference. He takes the security job, meets the attractive but unpredictable Vita Drewe, and adds to his list of enemies.
I was starting to get interested. As someone who thinks stockmarkets, futures trading and currency speculation ought to be illegal, I was aware that I was radically out of step with the times. I dimly grasped what Marriott was saying, enough to understand that it sounded like being allowed into the mint with a U-haul van.'
A client falls from the twentieth storey 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.
It is just another party in Sydney's eastern suburbs, a routine security job for Cliff Hardy. It leads, though, to an interesting meeting and a dangerous job.
Newcastle is a stretch for Cliff Hardy from Sydney's mean streets, and following up the mystery of Oscar Bach's death means he has to cover some unfamiliar and dangerous ground. Bach's death was classified as another tragic statistic from the Newcastle earthquake - but how could he have been seen alive five minutes afterwards?
A collection of fast-paced, gritty stories from Australia's best-loved crime writer. In stories that range from Sydney's mean back streets to its glittering but deadly harbour, Corris's hero Cliff Hardy comes up against a range of villains - along with clients who are not always what they seem.
