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Peter Corris
Peter Corris's first novel was published in 1980 and he has been a full time writer since 1982. Peter Corris is credited with reviving the fully-fledged Australian crime novel with local settings and reference points and with a series character firmly rooted in Australian culture - Cliff Hardy. Peter Corris was born in Stawell, Victoria in 1942. When he was five his family left the country for Melbourne and he was educated at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne. After taking a Master's degree at Monash University and a PhD at the Australian National University (both in History), he was an academic, teaching and researching in various universities and a College of Advanced Education until 1975 when he gave up academia for journalism. He was literary editor of The National Times, 1980-81. He has travelled and lived for short periods in the Pacific, Britain, Europe and the USA. His interests are reading and writing, weight training, golf (which he plays off a very high handicap), walking the dog, swimming and films. He is married to writer Jean Bedford and they have three daughters. He lives on the Illawarra coast of NSW. For much, much more details, check out Peter's web-page.

The Luke Dunlop series
Luke Dunlop is an ex-cop now working as a Witness Protection Officer.

Set Up (1992) My Review Get Even (1994)
Cross Off (1993)  
 
The Cliff Hardy Series
If a title has a hyperlink then you can get more details, the dustjacket summary plus my own review.
The Dying Trade (1980) Matrimonial Causes (1994)
White Meat (1981) Casino (1994)
The Marvellous Boy (1982) My Review The Washington Club (1997)
The Empty Beach (1983) My Review The Reward (1997) ***Buy***
Heroin Annie (1984) My Review Forget Me If you Can (1997)
Make Me Rich (1985) My Review The Black Prince (1998) ***Buy***
The Big Drop (1985) The Other Side of Sorrow (1999)
Deal Me Out (1986) My Review Lugarno (2001) ***Buy***
The Greenwich Apartments (1986) My Review Salt and Blood (2002) ***Buy***
The January Zone (1987) My Review Master's Mates (2003) ***Buy***
Man In the Shadows (1988) My Review The Coast Road (2004) ***Buy***
O'Fear (1990) My Review Taking Care of Business (2004)
Wet Graves (1991) My Review Saving Billie (2005) ***Buy***
Aftershock (1991) My Review The Undertow (2006) ***Buy***
 
Open File (2008)

 

The Ray Crawley series
 
Pokerface (1987) The Azanian Action (1991)
The Baltic Business (1988) The Japanese Job (1992)
The Kimberly Killing (1990) The Time Trap (1994)
The Cargo Club (1990) The Vietnam Volunteer
 
 
The Richard Browning series
 
"Box Office" Browning (1987) Browning P.I. (1992) ***Buy***
"Beverly Hills" Browning (1987) Browning Battles On (1993) ***Buy***
Browning Takes Off (1989) Browning Sahib (1994) ***Buy***
Browning In Buckskin (1991) Browning Without A Cause (1995)

 

 
 
 
From the Dustjacket
 
The Dying Trade : Hardy works out of Sydney but prowls the same mean streets as his famous Californian counterparts - Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Sam Spade.
 
It makes for a dangerous life - and an unputdownable thriller.
 
With his Smith and Wesson .38 under the dashboard of his battered Falcon, he answers a call from familiar private-eye territory - a leafy, sun-stilled bayside suburb onlt disturbed by an occasional explosion as his client idly shoots seagulls between drinks.
 
Here the problems, like the houses, the ambition and the money, are big. And Hardy is paid to unravel the problems the police can't or won't handle.
 
Who is harassing and threatening Susan Gutteridge? Is Dr Ian Brave a psychologist or a mercenary with a clinic? Why did Ailsa Sleeman's husband commit suicide and why is her car blown up? Above all, who has the files now?
 
Shot at, beaten up, his leads dying around him, Hardy pushes on with the case, smart-talking and quick-acting his way in and out of more trouble than he's paid for.
 
 
Set Up : They married in gaol. Cassie May, TV star, and Kerry Douglas Loew, celebrated prison escapee and armed hold-up merchant. Cassie is all Loew's ever wanted - but he's never seen her without the suffocating company of prison guards and cell walls. He's got ten years left to serve of a twenty-year sentence. He'll do anything to get out.
 

Loew makes a deal with the police. He turns informer in exchange for the promise of a new name, a new job, and a new life in a new town.

Ex-cop Luke Dunlop is the Witness Protection Officer assigned to Kerry Loew. Dunlop knows that in the code of the underworld, an informer is a dog. A dog can expect no mercy from his former mates. Especially if they're on trial for the murder of an assistant police commissioner.

Loew's enemies are out to get him. Any way they can. Dunlop's job is to make sure they can't get him.

 

 

Saving Billie : When journalist Louise Kramer hires Cliff Hardy to find Billie Merchant, Hardy heads for unfamiliar territory of the far southwestern suburbs of Sydney. Billie claims to have information about media big-wheel Jonas Clement - the subject of an incriminating expose by Kramer. Clement doesn't want Billie found and Clement's enemies want to find her first.
 
Hardie tracks Billie down, but 'saving Billie' means not only rescuing her, it means saving her from herself. Billie, ex-stripper, sometime hooker and druggie, is a handful. Hardy gets help from members of the Pacific Islander community and others, but the enemies close in and he is soon fighting on several different fronts.
 
Clement and his chief rival, Barclay Greaves, have heavies in the field, and Hardy has to negotiate his way through their divided loyalties. Some negotiations involve cunning but others involve guns. The action takes place against the backdrop of the Federal election campaign, and all outcomes are uncertain.

 

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