Comeback

Cliff Hardy #37

by Peter Corris

Cliff Hardy has his PI licence back - but does he still have what it takes to cut it on the mean streets of Sydney?

Cliff reckons the skills are still there, if a little rusty, and actor Bobby Forrest's case looks promising. Bobby's a nice-enough guy, but why is he being stalked by a red-hot brunette? And why did he have to go online to find a date?

When Bobby is murdered, it comes as a shock. Cliff's only solid lead is a white Commodore, the most ubiquitous car around. When a surprising connection with his own past surfaces, Cliff is forced to put some of his skills to the test. But is he heading in the wrong direction?

Somehow he has to put it all together without losing his licence again, but in true Hardy fashion he's managing to find his way into trouble, not out of it.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Australia, Fiction

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Peter Corris was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. His first novel was published in 1980. Corris is credited with reviving the fully-fledged Australian crime novel with local settings and reference points and with a series character firmly rooted in Australian culture, Sydney PI Cliff Hardy. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing".

He won the Lifetime Achievement award at the Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing in 1999 and was shortlisted for best novel in 2006 for Saving Billy and in 2007 for The Undertow.

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Peter Corris books and his character Cliff Hardy, and Comeback is known different. In Comeback Cliff Hardy manage to regain his PI license and start to investigate his first case the stalking of Bobby Forrest. Cliff Hardy thought it would be a nice easy first case. However, this was not what happened, and the readers of Comeback will follow roll coaster ride that ended in the unexpected conclusion. I love the way Peter Corris show with his character Cliff Hardy that having a heart bi-pass does not mean you can not continue to work in fields that are dangerous. The readers of Comeback will also enjoy the way Peter Corris describes Sydney and surrounding countryside. I recommend this book.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comeback is the 36th novel in the Cliff Hardy series and while I have recently read the last few Deep Water (2009) and Torn Apart (2010) I somehow missed Follow the Money (2011). A quick read of the blurb and a few reviews had me caught up though and I was ready to join Hardy on his next case.

After losing the love of his life, his PI licence, his health and his money, Cliff Hardy is making a comeback. The first person through the door of Cliff’s new office is Bobby Forrest, the son of a former client who is being harassed by an ex lover. When the actor is murdered just days later Cliff takes it personally and despite being warned off, he is determined to find the killer. Carefully digging through a web of suspicious security, prostitution and professional jealousy Hardy eliminates suspects one by one – until he finds himself at the wrong end of a pistol barrel.

While the situations Cliff Hardy finds himself in vary from book to book, it’s the characters’ familiarity that is responsible for continuing appeal of the series. Hardy is an old school private detective (despite his attempts at creating a paperless office) and while he has matured over the course of the series he has barely slowed down. The loss of his PI licence certainly never stopped him from sticking his nose into anything but now he is officially back on the job he is a little worried that he might not have ‘it’ anymore. It certainly seems Hardy might be slipping when his client is killed but Hardy soon proves otherwise as he investigates, turning up all manner of secrets in the meantime. The case leads Hardy off into tangents that he dutifully follows up – earning little else but a kidney punch and dire threats for his trouble, but eventually he unmasks the real murderer. The sub plots certainly keep things interesting and while Hardy’s mysteries are hardly brainteasers there are a few surprises in Comeback, particularly since their are so many suspects in the mix.

Comeback is an entertaining and satisfying read from Australia’s Godfather of Crime and I am glad to see Cliff Hardy back in Sydney doing what he does best. May he continue doing so for many more years.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It’s my first Peter Corris, and it won’t be my last. As this is also #37 in the Cliff Hardy series, I’m very glad they can be read as stand alone, as I had no trouble following the characters.

Cliff has just received his PI licence back, after having it suspended some three years ago, for good. But after receiving some advice from a friend, he re-applied and it was reinstated. A little older, a little wiser, if a little rusty, Cliff sets himself up with the mod cons of computer, internet, and mobile phone, gets himself a small office, and begins to advertise.

When small-time actor Bobby Forrest contacts him for help, he is a little sceptical, but Bobby seems a nice guy. He claims he’s being stalked by a gorgeous brunette he met on an online dating site. He has since met a lovely girl whom he’s very keen on, but the brunette won’t accept him ditching her.

Within days, Bobby is murdered, and Cliff is in shock. He’s also in trouble with the police, as he’s only been back in business a matter of days, and his first client is dead! Cliff also was the one to find him, and call it in! When Cliff decides to continue his investigation, as he feels somewhat responsible, things start going very wrong.

Moving throughout Sydney and the Central Coast, this quick, but very enjoyable read will keep you guessing the whole way through. How much more trouble can Hardy get into? Will he lose his licence again, or his life........

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A typically enjoyable and stripped down Cliff Hardy detective story by Peter Corris. No padding here! It's great to have Cliff back with his newly reinstated PI licence. His investigations have teeth once again and it is great to have him back!

[Ron Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A substantial Hardy story. He’s got his PI licence so he’s off and running on another murder case.

[Sally Edsall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up second-hand. I've been reading Sydney-based PI Cliff Hardy for decades. Not all of them, but plenty. I think it's up to # 40 now. But you don't have to have read any previously - they do stand alone.

And it is good.

Sure it's got all the usual totemic pratfalls - you do have to wonder how Cliff is still alive after all the bashings, beatings, shoulder charges and kidney punches he's endured!

But Corris spins a good yarn, and does it sparely.

There's a terrific reference to the sort of books I've read too many of lately (Sue Grafton, Elizabeth George, I'm looking at you)

"I packed a bag and caught a train to Wyong from Central Station. I settled down with CJ Sansom's Heartstone. I'd been working my way through his Tudor series. Good reads, although this one was a bit slow - padded, as a lot of novels are now. I don't know why."

Throws in a few contemporary references (Aust had its first female PM) and keeps you guessing pretty much to the end.

There was one clue plant early on that stuck out like the proverbial.

Cliff is always best when he's getting out 'n' about in Sydney, meeting new and old contacts alike in pubs and brothels in Newtown, Surry Hills, Bondi, Paddington, Pyrmont.

He does make forays to Burwood and Kogarah & manages to describe them well in just a few sentences.

A trusty companion for a two-sitting read, a good interlude before tacklibg something more substantial on the pile WTBR (waiting to be read).

[Kate Loveday · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read Peter Corris for many years, but I picked this up when I was looking for an easy read, and I'm glad I did. Cliff Hardy is back, after losing his PI licence and having it reinstated. He's still the same - older, but maybe not wiser. He still lives in Glebe and visits his old haunts. It's like meeting an old friend. The mystery is interesting he's still finding trouble, and the book is entertaining. I enjoyed it.

[Robert Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished 02/16/2013. Cliff Hardy has regained his private inquiry agent's license and is hired to see if he can stop a stalker of a very handsome actor who is in love with another less gorgeous lady. The client is murdered and so the merry go round begins. Another great C H novel, but maybe not as good as some.

[Biggus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dino Marnika is so bad (as a narrator), it is scary. I can't begin to imagine how anyone could listen to this clown and not want to strangle him. He sounds like he is reading to a bunch of kindergarten kids.

The book was pretty ordinary too. Comeback? Should have stayed in retirement. :(

[Graham Senders · Rating 2 out of 5]

As ever an enjoyable Cliff Hardy story. All the elements that make these a good read are there. And the wrap up is suitably ambiguous to leave a solid sense at the end.

[Glenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love his books and this one didn't disappoint. I especially like the fact they are set in Australia I know lots of those places

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before everything comes across just a bit gushy, there was a point somewhere in the middle of the Cliff Hardy series where I seriously lost interest. Whilst there are some elements of the books that are always going to be the same, somehow the sameness became very obvious, there was something slightly flat about the storylines and, to this reader at least, nothing much engaged my interest. I never totally gave up reading the series, but most definitely didn't shove things aside as each new book arrived.

And then, a few years ago, things changed. Around the time that Cliff started to really get in trouble, to lose his licence for real, as his health took a downward turn, somewhere in there, the series got it's fire back. Sure there's still the same basic elements making up the stories, yet somehow or other there's something very engaging happening again. Maybe it's got something to do with some of the aspects of Cliff's life catching up a bit with current day activities - a mobile phone and even a computer have even made a showing in Cliff's life. Maybe it's also that somehow Cliff is now starting to show just the slightest glimpse of aging, that's making the series somehow progress, change, move on just a little.

True fans, however, do not need to worry that Cliff is suddenly going to act his age, get himself a nice little runaround, and leap too heavily into the technology age - a mobile phone and office computer do not, a Private Detective, change that much. The point of COMEBACK is that Cliff is back, he's got his licence back, he's back working as a PI (albeit more because he needs the money and less because of any overt great desire to return to his old life), and he's out and about, old Ford and all, working the mean streets, getting roughed up just a bit and solving the puzzle.

COMEBACK is the story of Cliff's investigation into the death of actor Bobby Forrest. The only love interest in sight is Bobby's girlfriend, and the mystery is why Bobby died and how you're going to work out where one white Commodore came from in a sea of white Commodores.

The plot of this book is actually really good, and whilst there's still a bit of the beaten and still functioning PI stuff going on, all in all, Cliff's investigation style seems to have gotten a bit cunning with age (less prodding of the bear and more teasing it from a distance if you like).

I particularly enjoyed Hardy's "observation" about modern day crime fiction "padded, as a lot of novels are now. I don't know why." One thing you can never accuse a Cliff Hardy novel of is padding! They are sparse, entertaining, tight little capsules of Cliff the Private Detective working the mean streets of Sydney, and have always been thus.

Whilst I'd normally confess to having very little interest in following traditions, the over Christmas read of the latest Cliff Hardy instalment has become... let's call it a rather addictive habit. COMEBACK is really continuing the fantastic resurgence in this Australian crime fiction stalwart.

[Angela Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comeback is the 35th novel Peter Corris has written featuring Sydney-based PI Cliff Hardy since the first, The Dying Trade, was published in 1980. There are also two collections of short stories, ‘Cliff Hardy Cases’.

Comeback opens with a quote from British boxer Alan ‘Boom’ Minter: ‘A boxer makes a comeback for two reasons: either he’s broke or he needs the money.’

The same cannot be said of Corris, a full-time and prolific writer since 1982, known as 'the godfather of Australian crime fiction'.

In Comeback, Cliff Hardy gets his PI licence reinstated and sets himself up in a new warehouse conversion office in Pyrmont. He is employed by young actor Bobby Forrest who is being stalked by a woman he met on the internet, the woman threatening to harm his girlfriend, Jane. Hardy muses, ‘It was a reversal of the usual stalker scenario, but what could I expect? It was the twenty-first century and we had climate change, an unwinnable war supported by both sides of politics, a minority government and a female prime minister. Change was everywhere.’

When Bobby is killed, shot by someone driving a white Commodore, Hardy is employed by the actor’s father, a former client, to find out who is responsible. The more Hardy investigates, the more possible candidates he exposes—from a Fijian-Indian sex worker, to the kick-boxing standover man of a local high-profile businessman, to a former actor with a grudge—all of whom seem to drive white Commodores.

Reading Cliff Hardy novels is like sitting down with a favourite uncle in a pub and getting him to tell his best stories over a few beers. Corris, like the character he has been writing for over 30 years, has still got it. He knows how to spin a good yarn, seldom stretching it out, keep it fast-paced and tight—though there’s a different energy in Comeback compared with the earlier Cliff Hardy novels. Less violence. Fewer rhetorical flourishes—not that there were many to begin with. There’s the usual political commentary, digs about Melbourne, short-lived bursts of introspection. But Corris keeps it real with Hardy, who must be pushing sixty, and adjusts the pace accordingly.

Corris makes it look easy, and I once heard him say it took him only six weeks for him to write a Cliff Hardy novel. But there’s significant skill in developing a character over 35 outings while allowing readers to pick up any book in the series as a starting point. You don’t need to have read an earlier Cliff Hardy novel before picking up Comeback though, like me, it might make you want to go back and read some of the earlier ones. I've just finished reading A Marvellous Boy (1982) and watching the 1985 film version of the 1983 novel The Empty Beach with Bryan Brown as Hardy (see here for a great review of the film). And it's left me wanting to read more.

[Benito · Rating 3 out of 5]

The occasional Peter Corris detective novel is my guilty pleasure. No great works of high literary genius, but enjoyable particularly to a Sydneysider to see stories of murders at Strathfield golf course, trips to Woy Woy for weird Indian prostitutes and underground doctors who ran Rogan Josh restaurants. Beers at The Bank Hotel, Newtown deciphering clues from a dame who runs a shifty acting school in Angel Street. Putting down, and conversely name dropping, local actors and musos, and caricatures of those, at parties in Paddington, Bondi, Coogee or Darlinghurst.

Corris knows his job. He does it well and with obvious enjoyment.

This latest in the series is interesting as PI Cliff Hardy is dealing with impending old age (he spends almost as much time ruminating at the gym as he does over his beloved whiskies) and the advent of the internet into his life (people telling him rumours that saw on Facebook and he having to get his own website much to his chagrin) as well as dealing with the usual array of Aussie crims, living and dead lady friends, and money issues.

Also you can read it in a couple of sittings, which I admit may make it sound not worth it $29.99 RRP but I usually borrow them from Newtown or Waterloo libraries myself, or in this case get it free from the Sydney Writers' Festival Angus & Robertson Green Room. But hey, for all Hardy bitches about the interweb I'm sure the ebook versions will be pretty cheap there - I'll tell you when I get around to buying an e-reader.

[Rosalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I want to read a reliable, contemporary crime/detective novel I always think of Peter Corris and his distinctive Australian PI character - Cliff Hardy. Peter Corris as Cliff Hardy, walks the reader around inner Sydney as his story unfolds and Cliff is attempting to come out of retirement and resume work as an older investigator. Corris uses words sparingly but they are just right - no flowery descriptions that clog up the pace - yet the reader feels the atmosphere and can visualise the settings clearly.
I read recently that Peter Corris is going blind and has completed his last book because it is too frustrating to write and edit his work. I am quite shocked by this thought and find it difficult to contemplate. I feel so sad for him and his community of readers.

[Laura Rittenhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Corris writes really enjoyable, pared-down crime thrillers. His hero, Cliff Hardy, is a clever but very human Private Investigator who does the typical investigative stuff to solve the crime. In this case he works hard to find out who killed one of his clients. A young man came to Hardy for help because he thought he was being followed. Turns out he was right but Hardy didn't figure it out in time to save the man.

These books aren't full of forensic detail (thankfully) or lots of blood-red violence (hooray), they're just escapism and good escapism at that.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cliff Hardy, formerly disgraced, has had his PI licence restored and has decided to set up in business again. One of his first cases is that of Bobby Forrest, a young actor, who believes he is being stalked and threatened by a woman he met recently on a dating website. Cliff investigates and finds there is more in Bobby's past then he confided. When Bobby is found dead, Cliff starts to investigate in earnest as he feels he has let Bobby down by not protecting him. The action is fast moving and the twists and turns keep you guessing to the end.

[Charmaine Clancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing I enjoy about the Cliff Hardy crime series is that each can be read as a stand alone novel, as I don't always read them in order.

Hardy is a likeable and thoroughly flawed character - very much the loveable rogue type.

A good, light-hearted read, my only concern with this encounter was that Hardy didn't really achieve anything, he just seemed to stumble from one preventable death to the next. However, it did still keep me wondering what would come next and how it would all unfold.

[Balthazar Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of books today have a lot of padding, an observation made in this novel, and try to be overly complicated. This book, however, isn't like that. It's a nice simple straight forward private investigator story with enough twists and turns to make it interesting and captivating. Being set in Sydney makes it feel like an old friend. I really enjoyed this.

[Any Length · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read, interesting story.
Just one thing, you don't take a cab from Woy Woy train station into the town centre. It's less than 200 meters to walk. The cabby would be crabby with you for such a short ride.
And it's the train to Gosford you take, not to Wyong. Gosford would be the next main train station you would refer to. Whereas Wyong is a smaller one.
But I am nitpicking now.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

struggling a bit, but was reading another E-Book at same time.(to be fair)

[Gary Vassallo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable quick read. Especially enjoyed all the Sydney locations. Looking forward to rading more Cliff Hardy books.

[Bev Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Peter Corris' Best Cliff Hardy novels. Cliff has just been able to get his PI licence back. His first client is murdered, a tangled web spreads from that point

[Shirley Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite a bit better than the last Peter Corris book I read. He strayed from his usual formula a bit and it benefited from this.

[Margaret Small · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vintage Cliff. Long may he investigate.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay read. Probably being generous with three stars

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mystery set in Sydney, Australia.