Mischance Creek
The gripping new book in the bestselling Australian crime series
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4.6 • 82 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Hirsch is checking firearms. The regular police audit: all weapons secured, ammo stored separately, no unauthorised person with keys to the gun safe. He’s checking people, too. The drought is hitting hard in the mid-north, and Hirsch is responsible for the welfare of his scattered flock of battlers, bluebloods, loners and miscreants.
He isn’t usually called on for emergency roadside assistance. But with all the other services fully stretched, it’s Hirsch who has to grind his way out beyond the Mischance Creek ruins to where some clueless tourist has run into a ditch.
As it turns out, though, Annika Nordrum isn’t exactly a tourist. She’s searching for the body of her mother, who went missing seven years ago. And the only sense in which she’s clueless is the lack of information unearthed by the cops who phoned in the original investigation.
Hirsch owes it to Annika to help, doesn’t he? Not to mention that tackling a cold case beats the hell out of gun audits and admin…
Garry Disher has published sixty titles across multiple genres. With a growing international reputation for his best-selling crime novels, he has won four German and three Australian awards for best crime novel of the year, and been longlisted twice for a British CWA Dagger award. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.
‘Hirsch is one of my favourite characters…Unmissable.’ Hayley Scrivenor, author of Dirt Town
‘Disher is the gold standard for rural noir.’ Chris Hammer
‘Disher is one of this country’s finest writers.’ Tony Birch
‘A giant not only of crime fiction but of Australian letters.’ Ned Kelly Awards
Customer Reviews
Aussie crime fiction at its best
4.5 stars
Author
Australian. More than 60 published titles spanning both adult and children’s fiction, the former mostly in the crime genre. Multiple awards. This is the latest instalment in a series based around Paul Hirschhausen, the sole cop in a small fictional town near the Flinders Ranges in rural South Australia.
In brief
The book opens with our hero undertaking a mundane country policing task — the annual firearms audit — in his drought-ravaged community. It’s the Aussie outback, which means mucho driving and even more cups of tea. Pretty soon, he’s pursuing a cold case murder, as well as several fresh ones, investigating greed and corruption in local government, getting beaten up by sovereign citizens with axes (and hammers and rifles) to grind, and trying to look after for his widowed Mum in the city. Yada, yada, our hero lives to fight another day.
Writing
Mr D has been doing this for a long time, and it shows. It’s more outback police procedural than outback noir, although not lacking for action sequences. Both he and his protagonist possess a more progressive outlook than many of the supporting cast in his novels, but he never polemicises. (Hardly ever, anyway)
Bottom line
Aussie crime fiction at its best by a master of the craft.
Typical Garry Disher.
Having read all his books it’s goes without saying this a long slow burn type of novel, well played out with characters & much descriptive of scenery. Good read but book almost to the end to bring it all together. However, I feel another Hirst novel coming.
Fabulous!
Once again Garry Disher brings the wonderful country copper Paul Hirschhausen to vivid life as well as the harsh, arid environment he occupies and polices so diligently. Loved this latest book in the Hirsch series. Please give us more!!