Snapshot

This is kind of a creepy book. It is Disher's examination of the wicked underbelly of upper-middle class peninsular Victoria, Australia. Not so different from anywhere else in the world as long as anywhere else includes wife-swapping parties and shady doings at the local refugee detention camp. Our usual strange assortment of police detectives and constables, led by Inspector Hal Challis (of Disher's last two books), is present and accounted for and, as is usual with Disher's books, their lives and doings are central to the action of the book. In this book, things are especially tough for Challis because his superintendent is smack in the middle of Challis's murder investigation - the victim was his daughter-in-law. Superintendent McQuarrie is almost a cartoon of a police superintendent but there must be some truth to the depiction because I swear most superintendents are portrayed just as he is. Also, Challis's disaster of a love life seems to be settling down - or so we are intended to assume. I really like the characters in Disher's Challis books. They are flawed (terribly) and self-interested but they are also a good team and most of them have good instincts and worthy priorities. It's interesting to be back in their orbit.

I'm always looking for something new to attract my eye in the crime genre and I've been attracted to the publisher of the "Soho Crime" books. These stories take place in foregin locales and Mr. Disher's Detective Hal Challis stories take place in Austrailia. I've now read the first three in the series and each one is better than the last. Hal Challis plays the world weary police detective that has survived an assisination attempt by his wife who wanted him dead so she could be with another man only to have her heap guilt on him as she constanly calls him from prision to beg his forgiveness. Challis works with an assortment of well fleshed out characters from his female partner struggling with her attraction to Challis and a broken marriage to another cop; a bright, young upwardly mobile woman constable who spends her off time surfing and is stuck with a neanderthal, overzealous copper as a partner; and the ever insufferable Chief who stands in the way of Challis pursuing a killer that just might be his son-in-law. Terrific prose, a well-conceived plot with a smashing and very believable climax and fleshed out characters make this a series worth checking out. Start with the first in the series to get the background but make your way to this book. It's off the beaten path but well worth the journey. The 4th book is out in hardcover and I've already ordered it.

This man can write! Riviting plots and good writing makes Disher a real find. I have read all his books published in the U.S. and can't wait for the next one.

Australian author Disher opens his latest Hal Challis procedural with a murder victim driving nervously to the scene of her execution, her 7-year-old daughter by her side, triumph on her mind. Point of view switches to the hit man and his dismayed slacker driver as the gruesome scene unfolds, culminating in the escape of the little girl into the woods. Tense pandemonium breaks out in Challis' Mornington Peninsula homicide squad. The dead woman is the daughter-in-law of loathed Police Superintendent McQuarrie, who seems immediately intent on deflecting the investigation and shielding his son from police attention. But the child is a surprisingly calm and observant witness and when the murder team discovers that the victim had secretly taken pictures at the sex parties her husband dragged her to and sent them to prominent participants (including her husband), murder for hire looks increasingly likely. And the husband, as cold and dislikable as his wife - she was a psychologist with a confrontational approach - is looking better and better as a suspect. Fans will be pleased to find Challis' team intact. Hal himself is no longer seeing the local newspaper editor Tessa Kane, but has turned a guilty eye on his sergeant, Ellen Destry, unhappily married to a bitter traffic constable. Destry returns the regard, though both hold back. Young Pam Murphy is still partnered with rude, misogynistic John Tankard, whose psychological counseling, mandated after last year's shooting, seems to have scrambled his brain. They're on a traffic assignment - driving around in an unmarked sports car rewarding courteous drivers - and provide as much comic relief as they do accidental aid, red herrings and missed chances. Scobie Sutton still chatters ceaselessly about his amazing little daughter and plugs away at his job wishing he had more of Challis' intuitive spark. Before it's all over, more will lie dead on Australia's Peninsula coast and the lives of several of the continuing characters will have taken major turns. Disher delivers another fine story in an atmospheric, realistic, character-driven series. -- Portsmouth Herald

Australian Garry Disher spins his first US release in "Snapshot", a slick little noir jewel from down under reminiscent of Ian Rankin and his Scottish detective John Rebus. Off to a fast and sordid start, yuppie psychologist Janine McQuarrie succumbs to her husband's pressure and joins the swinger set, joining Melbourne's sex party crowd. Taking time out from the panting and rutting, she takes some clandestine cell phone snapshots of her groping buddies. Shortly after, she is gunned down on a deserted Mornington Peninsula suburb in front of her seven-year-old daughter in an apparent contract kill. Turns out her oversexed husband is also son of the local metropolitan police commissioner, adding a heavy dose of office politics to the baffling murder mystery that Inspector Hal Challis is trying to unwind while the senior McQuarrie does his best to thwart Challis' efforts and keep his son's reputation clean. Disher's story moves briskly, chock full of cops chasing crooks through dead ends and plot twists while leaving enough time for them to fantasize and occasionally act out their own sexual trysts. You may want to hang out an extra couple of nights at your local Outback to get familiar with the Aussie lingo, unless "chuffing the weed", "sea fret", or "pittosporum" roll naturally off your tongue. And then there's a less-than-subtle dose of left-leaning politics injected unnecessarily into a story that doesn't need embellishment. In the final analysis, though, "Snapshot" is a unique peek under the covers of southern Australian culture - a steady mystery and solid police procedural well worth the time.