Gun Control

A COMPELLING MYSTERY.....

GUN CONTROL is the latest release from legendary Australian crime novelist, Peter Coriss. And it happens to be one of the best. The finale to the opening chapter will shock you. Hardy is hired by successful local businessman Tim Greenhall to determine why his son committed a very grisly suicide. The chapter ends with a rather illegal but interesting addendum to the original question which I won’t reveal here.

The discovery of a dead bikie (and gun dealer) toward the end of part one of this tale may well revolt you in its descriptive detail. But it will ensure that you won’t stop reading. And the basic premise on which the story is based will evolve from “who supplied the gun that my son used to kill himself?” to “Who murdered my boy?”

Peter Corris uses paranoia almost as an ongoing character in some of his books - including this one - and it appears to be catching. One of Hardy’s guns is confiscated by the NSW Constabulary following a petty breach of it's issuance conditions and he is even warned off the case by his friend and former Commissioner of Police, Frank Parker. Of course, there would not be a book to hold, or a story to get lost in, if this ploy worked, and indeed, questions may well begin to rise in the reader’s consciousness even this early in the tale. (I am being deliberately vague here!).

This book is excellent. It is not overly long, but it is gripping and violent, and quite magnificently Australian. Given the nature of the deaths, there is a fair degree of suspense in the tale, even early in the book.

The more Hardy digs, the more he learns (obviously) and even the hero of the book is not immune to an attack of the dreaded disease we call paranoia. Characters introduced to the story right at the beginning are apparently shown to be liars by even family members later on. Cliff is not sure in whom he can place his trust, and so neither can the reader entirely relax their grip of their ipads as they fly through this new release.

I can’t wait to find out who killed Patrick Greenhall, and why. And of course, to learn with what weapon, and from where it came. I just hope Cliff Hardy is still around at story’s completion to give us more exciting adventures of what happens in the dark side of living in the wide, brown land down under.

Four stars for yet another consistently high quality release from a world class writer.

BFN Greggorio!