Cliff Hardy is the kind of man you would like to have in your repertoire of acquaintances. He’d be the one you’d go to when an issue of moral ambiguity arose, like when the people next door keep playing their music too loud and too late and ignore polite requests to desist but you are too worried about repercussions to complain to the police. Somehow, in a way you don’t really want to know, he would persuade them to stop. Indeed, they might even nod a faux friendly hello to you should you meet in the street or when you drop off the packages which the postie keeps leaving on your doorstep because he won’t set foot on their drive ever since he had a run-in with your neighbour’s Pitbull.
Hardy, Peter Corris’s Aussie iconic private eye, has returned in his 39th book, Silent Kill which was released just after we’d stopped welcoming in 2014. It’s been a lean period for Hardy work wise and he is persuaded to sign on for what seems an easy gig. He’s to be the bodyguard for Rory O’Hara, a former crusading