When journalist Louise Kramer hires Cliff Hardy to find Billie
Marchant, Hardy heads for unfamiliar territory of the far
south-western 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.
Hardy 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.
I don't know how many Cliff Hardy novels there are, but there
aren't enough.' Kerry Greenwood, Sydney Morning Herald
Hardy is a wonderful creation still, under Corris's magisterial
narrative control, capable of those odd echoes and resonances, the
elegiac interludes, that characterise the best crime writing.'
Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian odd echoes and resonances, the
elegiac interludes, that characterise the best crime writing.'
Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian
