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Hirsch #2
Peace
Christmas is coming to Tiverton, the outback South Australian town where Constable Paul Hirschhausen is making peace with his exile. That means rising temperatures—and tempers—and all Hirsch wants is a general absence of mayhem.
But the usual brawls and bingles give way to something animal slaughter, dead bodies, missing children, as the insidious gaze and reach of social media deepens the fissures in this isolated rural community.
Peace is the first sequel to Bitter Wash Road and confirms Hirsch and the landscape he is fused to as the new heroes of Australian crime fiction.
‘A scorchingly good novel.’ —Michael Robotham
‘An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity.’ —Dervla McTiernan
‘Disher is the gold standard for rural noir.’ —Chris Hammer
But the usual brawls and bingles give way to something animal slaughter, dead bodies, missing children, as the insidious gaze and reach of social media deepens the fissures in this isolated rural community.
Peace is the first sequel to Bitter Wash Road and confirms Hirsch and the landscape he is fused to as the new heroes of Australian crime fiction.
‘A scorchingly good novel.’ —Michael Robotham
‘An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity.’ —Dervla McTiernan
‘Disher is the gold standard for rural noir.’ —Chris Hammer
305 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 5, 2019
498 people are currently reading
1275 people want to read
About the author
Garry Disher
91 books722 followersGarry Disher was born in 1949 and grew up on his parents' farm in South Australia.
He gained post graduate degrees from Adelaide and Melbourne Universities. In 1978 he was awarded a creative writing fellowship to Stanford University, where he wrote his first short story collection. He travelled widely overseas, before returning to Australia, where he taught creative writing, finally becoming a full time writer in 1988. He has written more than 40 titles, including general and crime fiction, children's books, textbooks, and books about the craft of writing.
He gained post graduate degrees from Adelaide and Melbourne Universities. In 1978 he was awarded a creative writing fellowship to Stanford University, where he wrote his first short story collection. He travelled widely overseas, before returning to Australia, where he taught creative writing, finally becoming a full time writer in 1988. He has written more than 40 titles, including general and crime fiction, children's books, textbooks, and books about the craft of writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 397 reviews
September 13, 2020
Having adored Garry Disher's first in his brilliant Aussie crime series featuring the demoted Constable Paul 'Hirsch' Hirschhausen, I was avidly looking forward to this, the next in the series. It's the Christmas period, and after a year, Hirsch has settled down to what is mostly a community policing role, his one-cop shop in small town Tiverton, covering a vast area. However, there is little in the way of peace as Hirsch is hit by one thing after another, including the obstreperous drunk, Brenda Flann driving into the pub, a stolen ute, fires, burglaries, a child left locked in a car in the sweltering heat, and a missing dog. It often involves Hirsch exercising his judgement, rather than instigating criminal proceedings, in the hope of good community-police relations and his sincere desire to not ruin lives.
However, matters escalate with the posting of a video of an incident, the harrowing killing of miniature ponies, and the grim circumstances that Hirsch comes across in the process of carrying out a welfare check request from Sydney police on a family living in a isolated area. This brings an increasing media focus to Tiverton and Redruth, the arrival of outside police teams as a search for two missing sisters is triggered, their mother and brother brutally murdered. After previous events, Hirsch has a new Redruth boss in Sergeant Brandl, a marked improvement from before. Hirsch is still viewed with disdain and suspicion by many other police officers, and once again is hauled to Sydney for another Internal Affairs interrogation interview over his actions in what are deemed to be minor infractions and is duly warned. Then, there is the overly keen civic minded Martin Gwynne constantly pushing Hirsch to come for dinner.
Disher writes quality Aussie crime, with his sparse prose, a winning blend of ordinary policing with the more extraordinary and harrowing, providing a wonderful insight into and sense of small town Aussie communities. Where he really hits pay dirt is in his depiction of everyday bushwhackery, and in his diverse range of offbeat characters, many with mental health issues, some neglected, others with alcohol issues and more. Then there is Hirsch, working all the hours, facing pressures from all sides, professional and personal, with his relationship with teacher Wendy Street coming under strain. This is a wonderful addition to what is shaping up to be a stellar crime series, and I cannot wait to read the next in the series. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Serpent's Tail/Profile Books for an ARC.
However, matters escalate with the posting of a video of an incident, the harrowing killing of miniature ponies, and the grim circumstances that Hirsch comes across in the process of carrying out a welfare check request from Sydney police on a family living in a isolated area. This brings an increasing media focus to Tiverton and Redruth, the arrival of outside police teams as a search for two missing sisters is triggered, their mother and brother brutally murdered. After previous events, Hirsch has a new Redruth boss in Sergeant Brandl, a marked improvement from before. Hirsch is still viewed with disdain and suspicion by many other police officers, and once again is hauled to Sydney for another Internal Affairs interrogation interview over his actions in what are deemed to be minor infractions and is duly warned. Then, there is the overly keen civic minded Martin Gwynne constantly pushing Hirsch to come for dinner.
Disher writes quality Aussie crime, with his sparse prose, a winning blend of ordinary policing with the more extraordinary and harrowing, providing a wonderful insight into and sense of small town Aussie communities. Where he really hits pay dirt is in his depiction of everyday bushwhackery, and in his diverse range of offbeat characters, many with mental health issues, some neglected, others with alcohol issues and more. Then there is Hirsch, working all the hours, facing pressures from all sides, professional and personal, with his relationship with teacher Wendy Street coming under strain. This is a wonderful addition to what is shaping up to be a stellar crime series, and I cannot wait to read the next in the series. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Serpent's Tail/Profile Books for an ARC.
December 20, 2020
EXCERPT: Six-thirty. The sun was above the droughty hills and slanting through the trees now, promising another cloudless, windless, stifling day. Time for his shower and shave, his second breakfast. But first he passed by the shop, quickly confirming that it had been a good idea to bring the garbage bag. Bending, pushing against his aches and pains, he scooped up plastic bottles, scraps of wrapping paper, dead sparklers, paper hats, cigarette butts. He moved further up Kitchener Street, hunting and pecking, and came upon a significant pool of blood.
Hirsch froze for a moment, then knelt. Touched his forefinger to it. Still sticky; spilt recently then.
He gazed along the street. Kitchener was a short street, six homes on either side. He ran a mental checklist: who was capable of violence? Who was likely to be on the receiving end?
None of these people.
Movement alerted him. A shape behind a garden hedge, a disturbance in the sparse leaves. The house belonged to an elderly widower named Cromer. Calling, 'Mr. Cromer?' Hirsch approached the driveway entrance.
A cry, just as he stepped onto the footpath. A queer, soft, alien cry, not of warning but of distress. And more blood. Spooked now, Hirsch entered the front yard. Blood new and glistening on the couch-grass lawn. A panicked sound, high-pitched, and Hirsch jumped in fright as one of Nan Washburn's miniature ponies retreated, trembling, into the corner between the hedge and the side fence. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
ABOUT 'PEACE': Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but the community work-welfare checks and working bees-is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a ute and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch's life has been peaceful.
Until he's called to a strange, vicious incident in Kitchener Street. And Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living outside town on a forgotten back road.
Suddenly, it doesn't look like a season of goodwill at all.
MY THOUGHTS: 'That's all a cop wants at Christmas,' he thought. 'Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.'
Eighteen months earlier, Hirsch had been unlucky enough to find himself in a corrupt CIB squad. It had been disbanded, but some of the shit had stuck and he was demoted and stationed in the remote one cop town of Tiverton. Sometimes, it seemed, that as a newcomer to the bush, his job was as much probing the landscape as probing the crimes committed in it. He does regular welfare check runs. Some of the people he calls on are lonely, others vulnerable. Some get into trouble through lack of foresight; a handful are actively dodgy. What he loves most is the variety, the different people, experiences, the fact that he never knows quite who or what he is going to encounter.
And he encounters a lot of the unexpected.
I read the first book in this series, Bitter Wash Road, voraciously. I was, when I started Peace, unsure if it would live up to its predecessor. I needn't have worried. Peace is every bit as good. Twelve months on, Hirsch has settled into his community, he knows people (some he wishes he didn't, like the overly officious Martin Gwynn), he has forged relationships. He has also found some old journals written by a landowner in the 1800s, and journal entries are interspersed with the text. WARNING: These journal entries contain racist comments. They need to be read in context of the time at which they were written. We cannot change the way people thought and acted at that time. We can learn from it and ensure it never happens again.
While Hirsch may be wishing for a Christmas free of mayhem, it's not what he is going to get. A local drunk drives into the pub, a ute is stolen, there are fires, burglaries, a missing dog, and a child left locked in a car in the extreme heat. Not to mention a massacre. These last two incidents kick off a media frenzy that results in tragic consequences.
I could never have foreseen where Garry Disher was heading at the beginning of this book, but it was one hell of a ride and I enjoyed every word, every moment of it. I have book #3, Consolation, ready to start.
This is a top crime series set in rural South Australia. It is atmospheric and beautifully written. Disher's style is descriptive; the smells, the tastes, the feel. His dialogue is natural, his characters exactly who I would expect to find out bush, often people who have been forced there by circumstance, those unable to leave due to family responsibilities, or those who choose to hide there. Disher has captured and conveyed the essence of a small remote Australian town and its inhabitants. I am keen to get back there.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
THE AUTHOR: Garry Disher was born in 1949 and grew up on his parents' farm in South Australia.
He gained post graduate degrees from Adelaide and Melbourne Universities. In 1978 he was awarded a creative writing fellowship to Stanford University, where he wrote his first short story collection. He travelled widely overseas, before returning to Australia, where he taught creative writing, finally becoming a full time writer in 1988
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Serpent's Tail/Profile Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Peace by Garry Disher for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com
This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
Hirsch froze for a moment, then knelt. Touched his forefinger to it. Still sticky; spilt recently then.
He gazed along the street. Kitchener was a short street, six homes on either side. He ran a mental checklist: who was capable of violence? Who was likely to be on the receiving end?
None of these people.
Movement alerted him. A shape behind a garden hedge, a disturbance in the sparse leaves. The house belonged to an elderly widower named Cromer. Calling, 'Mr. Cromer?' Hirsch approached the driveway entrance.
A cry, just as he stepped onto the footpath. A queer, soft, alien cry, not of warning but of distress. And more blood. Spooked now, Hirsch entered the front yard. Blood new and glistening on the couch-grass lawn. A panicked sound, high-pitched, and Hirsch jumped in fright as one of Nan Washburn's miniature ponies retreated, trembling, into the corner between the hedge and the side fence. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
ABOUT 'PEACE': Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but the community work-welfare checks and working bees-is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is here and, apart from a grass fire, two boys stealing a ute and Brenda Flann entering the front bar of the pub without exiting her car, Hirsch's life has been peaceful.
Until he's called to a strange, vicious incident in Kitchener Street. And Sydney police ask him to look in on a family living outside town on a forgotten back road.
Suddenly, it doesn't look like a season of goodwill at all.
MY THOUGHTS: 'That's all a cop wants at Christmas,' he thought. 'Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.'
Eighteen months earlier, Hirsch had been unlucky enough to find himself in a corrupt CIB squad. It had been disbanded, but some of the shit had stuck and he was demoted and stationed in the remote one cop town of Tiverton. Sometimes, it seemed, that as a newcomer to the bush, his job was as much probing the landscape as probing the crimes committed in it. He does regular welfare check runs. Some of the people he calls on are lonely, others vulnerable. Some get into trouble through lack of foresight; a handful are actively dodgy. What he loves most is the variety, the different people, experiences, the fact that he never knows quite who or what he is going to encounter.
And he encounters a lot of the unexpected.
I read the first book in this series, Bitter Wash Road, voraciously. I was, when I started Peace, unsure if it would live up to its predecessor. I needn't have worried. Peace is every bit as good. Twelve months on, Hirsch has settled into his community, he knows people (some he wishes he didn't, like the overly officious Martin Gwynn), he has forged relationships. He has also found some old journals written by a landowner in the 1800s, and journal entries are interspersed with the text. WARNING: These journal entries contain racist comments. They need to be read in context of the time at which they were written. We cannot change the way people thought and acted at that time. We can learn from it and ensure it never happens again.
While Hirsch may be wishing for a Christmas free of mayhem, it's not what he is going to get. A local drunk drives into the pub, a ute is stolen, there are fires, burglaries, a missing dog, and a child left locked in a car in the extreme heat. Not to mention a massacre. These last two incidents kick off a media frenzy that results in tragic consequences.
I could never have foreseen where Garry Disher was heading at the beginning of this book, but it was one hell of a ride and I enjoyed every word, every moment of it. I have book #3, Consolation, ready to start.
This is a top crime series set in rural South Australia. It is atmospheric and beautifully written. Disher's style is descriptive; the smells, the tastes, the feel. His dialogue is natural, his characters exactly who I would expect to find out bush, often people who have been forced there by circumstance, those unable to leave due to family responsibilities, or those who choose to hide there. Disher has captured and conveyed the essence of a small remote Australian town and its inhabitants. I am keen to get back there.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
THE AUTHOR: Garry Disher was born in 1949 and grew up on his parents' farm in South Australia.
He gained post graduate degrees from Adelaide and Melbourne Universities. In 1978 he was awarded a creative writing fellowship to Stanford University, where he wrote his first short story collection. He travelled widely overseas, before returning to Australia, where he taught creative writing, finally becoming a full time writer in 1988
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Serpent's Tail/Profile Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Peace by Garry Disher for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com
This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
June 12, 2022
This is proving to be another really excellent series by this Australian author. Paul Hirschhausen or Hirsch as he is known, is a Police Constable in Tiverton, a small town in rural Australia. His work entails community policing which means he covers a large area, visiting people at risk and dealing with local crime.
The story begins with Hirsch sorting out normal every day issues but then a string of incidents occur, each one getting more serious than the one before. Eventually it escalates until outside police teams are called in and the action really ramps up. I was totally gripped by this stage - it is the kind of book you wish you could just sit and read straight through from beginning to end.
Garry Disher knows how to write his Australian settings. The pages positively breathe the atmosphere of a small Australian country town at Christmas time in the heat and the drought. Hirsch himself is a great character and I enjoyed reading about his relationship with a local teacher and her daughter.
Altogether a great book and definitely worth a read!
The story begins with Hirsch sorting out normal every day issues but then a string of incidents occur, each one getting more serious than the one before. Eventually it escalates until outside police teams are called in and the action really ramps up. I was totally gripped by this stage - it is the kind of book you wish you could just sit and read straight through from beginning to end.
Garry Disher knows how to write his Australian settings. The pages positively breathe the atmosphere of a small Australian country town at Christmas time in the heat and the drought. Hirsch himself is a great character and I enjoyed reading about his relationship with a local teacher and her daughter.
Altogether a great book and definitely worth a read!
May 12, 2021
4.5~5★
“Everyone lied, every day—especially to the police. A one-off, outright lie, from someone unused to lying, could often be identified and disproved. Constant and habitual lying was harder to recognise, let alone challenge, because the liar no longer saw a distinction between a lie and the truth.”
Hirsch is the one cop in the one-cop-shop in the one-horse town of Tiverton, South Australia. He’s been trying hard to ingratiate himself with the locals, so he’s reluctantly yielded to the pressure to put on a Santa suit in the stifling summer heat and ride into town on the one horse, Radish.
Actually, I tell a lie. Radish is an enormous Clydesdale, but he’s not entirely alone. His owner, Nan Washburn, breeds prize-winning miniature ponies on a few acres on the outskirts of town, and some local kids earn a bit of money helping out. It’s not a place with many entertainment or employment options for kids. For anyone, for that matter.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen now has a pretty good handle on who the troublemakers are likely to be, who the nuisances are, and who’s just lonely and needs a chat. He’s pretty well-liked and pretty trusted.
“‘Wayne here?’
Muir stowed the hose, taking his time. Contemplating his cop friend as if weighing his loyalties. Wayne Flann belonged to the district; he was a CFS* member—but he was also trouble. Hirsch was accustomed to seeing these mental machinations in the locals. He let the process play out.” *Country Fire Service
Wayne Flann is in the troublemaker category while his younger brother is maybe nuisance category, graduating to trouble, and then there are some kids who are kind of hangers-on, but it’s hard to know which direction they’re heading. Paul is alert and watchful.
It’s Christmas time (hence the Santa suit), and when a crime is committed that warrants some investigative assistance from a more major centre, Paul finds himself stuck with Office Christmas Party protocol. Get some food and grog, and oh yes … last minute Christmas cards.
“In matters of card-giving, humour was his default position, but the three Redruth officers were strangers to him. Did any of them have a sense of humour? Were they churchgoers? In the end he found three generic snowscapes with the single word ‘Peace’ inside. That’s all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.”
No absence of mayhem for Hirsch, unfortunately, and very little time to spend in peace with Wendy and Katie, his new lady-love and her daughter – the only people he really wants to spend Christmas with. Instead, it’s full on policing around the countryside, dealing eventually with big-city detectives who won’t say why they are involved.
He used to be a ‘real’ detective before he was demoted for ratting out the rats in his past department. You don’t get ahead by blowing the whistle, but he did blow out some of the dirt.
“Roesch prodded him in the chest. ‘You’re wasted out here.’
‘Not country-town cop material?’
‘I’m from a country town,’ Roesch said. ‘Nothing against country towns. You just don’t want to get trapped in one.’”
Actually, a lot of his time is spent on the road, the rough and dusty and back-breaking road, doing the rounds of trouble spots, isolated old folks at risk, and others who are likely to be in, or causing, trouble – addicts, alcoholics, families suffering with violence. Disher’s characters and landscapes are terrific.
Hirsch is summonsed to Redruth to report to his seniors. He doesn’t know why, but he’s sure it’s not good. A sergeant at that meeting shook hands with Hirsch, but it was not encouraging.
“The handshake brisk, dry. He settled back in his chair with little adjustments of his shirt and trousers. A man who can’t abide creases, thought Hirsch. A man who walks around thinking about his next pair of sunglasses.”
All in all, I get the feeling he might rather be in a one-horse town with Wendy and Katy than deal with the likes of these cops again, but it’s pretty hard going.
“The land out there was parched, the roads powdery and chopped about. Hirsch headed up and down the folds of the earth, dust boiling thickly in his wake. His wrists juddered on the steering wheel.”
Disher is just so good. I’m enjoying this series. I’m reading them in order, which I prefer, but there’s enough back story filled in that this could be a standalone. On to the next one!
“Everyone lied, every day—especially to the police. A one-off, outright lie, from someone unused to lying, could often be identified and disproved. Constant and habitual lying was harder to recognise, let alone challenge, because the liar no longer saw a distinction between a lie and the truth.”
Hirsch is the one cop in the one-cop-shop in the one-horse town of Tiverton, South Australia. He’s been trying hard to ingratiate himself with the locals, so he’s reluctantly yielded to the pressure to put on a Santa suit in the stifling summer heat and ride into town on the one horse, Radish.
Actually, I tell a lie. Radish is an enormous Clydesdale, but he’s not entirely alone. His owner, Nan Washburn, breeds prize-winning miniature ponies on a few acres on the outskirts of town, and some local kids earn a bit of money helping out. It’s not a place with many entertainment or employment options for kids. For anyone, for that matter.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen now has a pretty good handle on who the troublemakers are likely to be, who the nuisances are, and who’s just lonely and needs a chat. He’s pretty well-liked and pretty trusted.
“‘Wayne here?’
Muir stowed the hose, taking his time. Contemplating his cop friend as if weighing his loyalties. Wayne Flann belonged to the district; he was a CFS* member—but he was also trouble. Hirsch was accustomed to seeing these mental machinations in the locals. He let the process play out.” *Country Fire Service
Wayne Flann is in the troublemaker category while his younger brother is maybe nuisance category, graduating to trouble, and then there are some kids who are kind of hangers-on, but it’s hard to know which direction they’re heading. Paul is alert and watchful.
It’s Christmas time (hence the Santa suit), and when a crime is committed that warrants some investigative assistance from a more major centre, Paul finds himself stuck with Office Christmas Party protocol. Get some food and grog, and oh yes … last minute Christmas cards.
“In matters of card-giving, humour was his default position, but the three Redruth officers were strangers to him. Did any of them have a sense of humour? Were they churchgoers? In the end he found three generic snowscapes with the single word ‘Peace’ inside. That’s all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.”
No absence of mayhem for Hirsch, unfortunately, and very little time to spend in peace with Wendy and Katie, his new lady-love and her daughter – the only people he really wants to spend Christmas with. Instead, it’s full on policing around the countryside, dealing eventually with big-city detectives who won’t say why they are involved.
He used to be a ‘real’ detective before he was demoted for ratting out the rats in his past department. You don’t get ahead by blowing the whistle, but he did blow out some of the dirt.
“Roesch prodded him in the chest. ‘You’re wasted out here.’
‘Not country-town cop material?’
‘I’m from a country town,’ Roesch said. ‘Nothing against country towns. You just don’t want to get trapped in one.’”
Actually, a lot of his time is spent on the road, the rough and dusty and back-breaking road, doing the rounds of trouble spots, isolated old folks at risk, and others who are likely to be in, or causing, trouble – addicts, alcoholics, families suffering with violence. Disher’s characters and landscapes are terrific.
Hirsch is summonsed to Redruth to report to his seniors. He doesn’t know why, but he’s sure it’s not good. A sergeant at that meeting shook hands with Hirsch, but it was not encouraging.
“The handshake brisk, dry. He settled back in his chair with little adjustments of his shirt and trousers. A man who can’t abide creases, thought Hirsch. A man who walks around thinking about his next pair of sunglasses.”
All in all, I get the feeling he might rather be in a one-horse town with Wendy and Katy than deal with the likes of these cops again, but it’s pretty hard going.
“The land out there was parched, the roads powdery and chopped about. Hirsch headed up and down the folds of the earth, dust boiling thickly in his wake. His wrists juddered on the steering wheel.”
Disher is just so good. I’m enjoying this series. I’m reading them in order, which I prefer, but there’s enough back story filled in that this could be a standalone. On to the next one!
September 28, 2020
After blowing the whistle on some corrupt detectives, Paul Hirschhausen's own career as a detective in Sydney ended when he was demoted and transferred to a one cop station in the small South Australian outback town of Tiverton. Now, in this second book, a year on from a rocky start, Hirsch is becoming accepted and even respected by the community. His relationship with teacher Wendy is going well and he has been invited to play Santa for the town's kids and to judge the best Christmas light display.
With a new boss in the regional station at Redruth, Hirsch's policing has settled down to routine matters of breaking up pub fights, booking speeding drivers and regular welfare checks on elderly or isolated people in the far flung areas of his beat. That all changes just before Christmas when some ponies are brutally injured and killed and a welfare check request from Sydney leads Hirsch to discover a grisly murder scene and two missing children. Now detectives from Sydney and the media have descended on the town and Hirsch's already long days have become even longer.
Disher has a very fine sense of small town Australia and the hot, dry landscape and the people who live in it are superbly described. His characters cover the range of personalities found in such places from hard working, drought bitten farmers to people on the margins with drug and alcohol and mental health problems, as well as the town busy body who stores up grievances. Hirsch is a wonderful invention, warm-hearted and a believer in dispensing justice as needed, with a good sense of humour and an even temper. The plot is complex with multiple strands but it all comes together wonderfully well. Disher remains one of Australia's finest crime writers and I hope he has a few more sequels in this series in the pipeline.
With thanks to Serpent's Tail and Netgalley for a digital copy
With a new boss in the regional station at Redruth, Hirsch's policing has settled down to routine matters of breaking up pub fights, booking speeding drivers and regular welfare checks on elderly or isolated people in the far flung areas of his beat. That all changes just before Christmas when some ponies are brutally injured and killed and a welfare check request from Sydney leads Hirsch to discover a grisly murder scene and two missing children. Now detectives from Sydney and the media have descended on the town and Hirsch's already long days have become even longer.
Disher has a very fine sense of small town Australia and the hot, dry landscape and the people who live in it are superbly described. His characters cover the range of personalities found in such places from hard working, drought bitten farmers to people on the margins with drug and alcohol and mental health problems, as well as the town busy body who stores up grievances. Hirsch is a wonderful invention, warm-hearted and a believer in dispensing justice as needed, with a good sense of humour and an even temper. The plot is complex with multiple strands but it all comes together wonderfully well. Disher remains one of Australia's finest crime writers and I hope he has a few more sequels in this series in the pipeline.
With thanks to Serpent's Tail and Netgalley for a digital copy
November 12, 2019
Constable Paul Hirschhausen had been in Tiverton for around twelve months; his demotion and banishment to the dry outback South Australian town part of history. With Christmas getting closer he hoped life would continue to be peaceful – for him and the townsfolk. But it wasn’t meant to be. Being the only cop meant he had to make executive decisions all the time, which he did when an unregistered ute was stolen and dumped. It was when he stumbled across an incident on Nan Washburn’s property that things started turning bad…
When Sydney NSW police became interested in a family living out of town on a pothole-ridden back road, Hirsch headed out for a welfare check. What he found shocked him – it brought police from Adelaide and NSW to their small town. Suddenly police vehicles and personnel were everywhere. What would be the outcome for the town’s residents and Hirsch himself? It wouldn’t be a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for some.
Peace is the 2nd in the Paul Hirschhausen series by Aussie author Garry Disher and I loved it! A fabulous follow up to Bitter Wash Road, and I can’t wait for the next in the series. Hirsch has a dry sense of humour and made me laugh on numerous occasions. He’s a good, hard working cop; well organized (maybe the paperwork suffers a little) and meticulous in his duty. There were plenty of twists, action and harrowing situations to keep me flying through the pages. Highly recommended.
With thanks to Text Publishing for my copy to read in exchange for an honest review.
When Sydney NSW police became interested in a family living out of town on a pothole-ridden back road, Hirsch headed out for a welfare check. What he found shocked him – it brought police from Adelaide and NSW to their small town. Suddenly police vehicles and personnel were everywhere. What would be the outcome for the town’s residents and Hirsch himself? It wouldn’t be a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for some.
Peace is the 2nd in the Paul Hirschhausen series by Aussie author Garry Disher and I loved it! A fabulous follow up to Bitter Wash Road, and I can’t wait for the next in the series. Hirsch has a dry sense of humour and made me laugh on numerous occasions. He’s a good, hard working cop; well organized (maybe the paperwork suffers a little) and meticulous in his duty. There were plenty of twists, action and harrowing situations to keep me flying through the pages. Highly recommended.
With thanks to Text Publishing for my copy to read in exchange for an honest review.
March 13, 2020
This will be a short review as I do not have a lot to say about this book.
So let me start and finish quick.
This book could've been a 100 or more pages shorter. Since it was too long of a read, it meant I zoned out more than I should've. Especially since it was a small townside mystery, there wasn't a lot happening and most of the stuff said was repeated about the town.
Plus there is some animal cruelty shown, that has no hint given about in the blurb of the book. But anyway that's how the story is shown to start. From a farm animal's death.
Sigh...that really does not excite me in the least, or to continue reading through an already too long and dead town mystery novel.
Maybe sometime later in the future, I would try it again. But for now, it's a big fat NO.
PS: It was also a library pick, it wasn't on anyone's shelf that I got inspired from. Thank gosh.
Until the next read,
TMR
So let me start and finish quick.
This book could've been a 100 or more pages shorter. Since it was too long of a read, it meant I zoned out more than I should've. Especially since it was a small townside mystery, there wasn't a lot happening and most of the stuff said was repeated about the town.
Plus there is some animal cruelty shown, that has no hint given about in the blurb of the book. But anyway that's how the story is shown to start. From a farm animal's death.
Sigh...that really does not excite me in the least, or to continue reading through an already too long and dead town mystery novel.
Maybe sometime later in the future, I would try it again. But for now, it's a big fat NO.
PS: It was also a library pick, it wasn't on anyone's shelf that I got inspired from. Thank gosh.
Until the next read,
TMR
September 8, 2020
Mr Disher can write! I have to be honest and say the start of this book was really quite pedestrian but I persevered because Mr Disher’s writing is so evocative. I live in rural Australia so I can really relate to his superb descriptions of both life in a small country town and the harsh but beautiful landscape. And then of course you are slowly drawn into a very interesting and tragic story.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch) has been sent to the one man cop shop at Tiverton in the wilds of South Australia in a bit of disgrace - tarred with the stench of corruption but not personally guilty. His role is mainly one of community policing, writing a few traffic fines and maybe breaking up the odd bar fight. He has a massive area to patrol. The townsfolk and the people living on remote properties are a diverse bunch. But Hirsch’s comfortable routine is suddenly interrupted shortly before Christmas when mayhem visits his sleepy domain. A random intervention to rescue a stricken young child from inside a roasting vehicle sets thing off. The mother overreacts, a physical altercation ensues and the results are posted on You Tube. This sets off a chain reaction of violence and murder that no one could have predicted. Events spiral out of control, children are missing and the big guns, police from Sydney, are called in. Little does anyone know the far reaching consequences this will have.
Trigger warning: some ponies are killed and injured although this is not described and it is relevant to the story. My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and Garry Disher for providing a copy a of the book. All opinions are my own.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch) has been sent to the one man cop shop at Tiverton in the wilds of South Australia in a bit of disgrace - tarred with the stench of corruption but not personally guilty. His role is mainly one of community policing, writing a few traffic fines and maybe breaking up the odd bar fight. He has a massive area to patrol. The townsfolk and the people living on remote properties are a diverse bunch. But Hirsch’s comfortable routine is suddenly interrupted shortly before Christmas when mayhem visits his sleepy domain. A random intervention to rescue a stricken young child from inside a roasting vehicle sets thing off. The mother overreacts, a physical altercation ensues and the results are posted on You Tube. This sets off a chain reaction of violence and murder that no one could have predicted. Events spiral out of control, children are missing and the big guns, police from Sydney, are called in. Little does anyone know the far reaching consequences this will have.
Trigger warning: some ponies are killed and injured although this is not described and it is relevant to the story. My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and Garry Disher for providing a copy a of the book. All opinions are my own.
November 18, 2019
Rural noir being the big thing at the moment, it's sad that many seem to have forgotten that there have been superbly talented authors like Garry Disher telling beautifully crafted, intelligent, and informed stories of the urban fringe, and the rural regions for many years. PEACE is the second book now to feature Constable Paul Hirschhausen, following on from BITTER WASH ROAD. As is always the way with a carefully crafted series like this, you can read PEACE first if you missed the earlier novel, although I was grateful that I'd read and remembered well the earlier novel, because Hirschhausen's story is part of the appeal.
Every single time I pick up a book by Garry Disher I'm reminded of just how assured, and deeply thoughtful a writer he is. Whilst my favourite of his series has always been the Wyatt books, I've developed a deep admiration for those that he sets in rural regions. Disher was a child of the South Australian Mallee area and his understanding of the landscape, climate, sensibility and the way people fit into dryland areas of Australia is obvious, without being overt. At no stage does anything in any of the books come across as patronising or demeaning, nor does he stray into sentimental tosh or hyperbole. This world, the people in it, the daft and good things they do, the trials and joys of their lives - they are what they are, the same as they would be for any community anywhere. Just add distance, varying weather and the swaying tight-rope walk that farming economic conditions have become.
Whilst re-introducing readers to Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch as he's known), Disher has constructed a complicated plot that combines local interactions, some confrontational animal cruelty, far-flung interference, surprising kindness, appallingly violent murders, a family in crisis, a couple of families making the best of some complicated personal circumstances, and a browbeaten woman who finds the perfect way to handle her tormentor. Add to that Hirsch's ongoing rubs against distant police hierarchy, a fair bit of reference back to career lowlights in the past, and a clear sense of place and culture, and you end up with a story that starts off with many possible interpretations, and comes down to the all too common occurrence of people behaving badly and then trying to pretend they haven't. At many many levels. Along the way there is plenty to consider about the downturn in rural economies and respect for those communities; the difficulties of incomers and long term locals learning to get along; the complications that the huge size of a rural "beat" can create; the importance of trusting your instincts and not clinging too tightly to first impressions (yes that's a salient lesson in contradictions); and the value of a bit of local knowledge when it comes to solving crimes, and the disappointment that can sometimes bring with it.
When it comes to Australian sensibility, culture, and fringe communities we were lucky to have Peter Temple's acute powers of observation and interaction to create some stellar, pared back, Australian fiction. We should never forget that for that whole time we've had Garry Disher's local knowledge, acute observations and skilled writing ability, combined with an outstanding ability to spin a yarn in a particularly Australian tone. All show no tell, all dry and beautifully pared back, all true, and all so very elegantly delivered.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
Every single time I pick up a book by Garry Disher I'm reminded of just how assured, and deeply thoughtful a writer he is. Whilst my favourite of his series has always been the Wyatt books, I've developed a deep admiration for those that he sets in rural regions. Disher was a child of the South Australian Mallee area and his understanding of the landscape, climate, sensibility and the way people fit into dryland areas of Australia is obvious, without being overt. At no stage does anything in any of the books come across as patronising or demeaning, nor does he stray into sentimental tosh or hyperbole. This world, the people in it, the daft and good things they do, the trials and joys of their lives - they are what they are, the same as they would be for any community anywhere. Just add distance, varying weather and the swaying tight-rope walk that farming economic conditions have become.
Whilst re-introducing readers to Paul Hirschhausen (Hirsch as he's known), Disher has constructed a complicated plot that combines local interactions, some confrontational animal cruelty, far-flung interference, surprising kindness, appallingly violent murders, a family in crisis, a couple of families making the best of some complicated personal circumstances, and a browbeaten woman who finds the perfect way to handle her tormentor. Add to that Hirsch's ongoing rubs against distant police hierarchy, a fair bit of reference back to career lowlights in the past, and a clear sense of place and culture, and you end up with a story that starts off with many possible interpretations, and comes down to the all too common occurrence of people behaving badly and then trying to pretend they haven't. At many many levels. Along the way there is plenty to consider about the downturn in rural economies and respect for those communities; the difficulties of incomers and long term locals learning to get along; the complications that the huge size of a rural "beat" can create; the importance of trusting your instincts and not clinging too tightly to first impressions (yes that's a salient lesson in contradictions); and the value of a bit of local knowledge when it comes to solving crimes, and the disappointment that can sometimes bring with it.
When it comes to Australian sensibility, culture, and fringe communities we were lucky to have Peter Temple's acute powers of observation and interaction to create some stellar, pared back, Australian fiction. We should never forget that for that whole time we've had Garry Disher's local knowledge, acute observations and skilled writing ability, combined with an outstanding ability to spin a yarn in a particularly Australian tone. All show no tell, all dry and beautifully pared back, all true, and all so very elegantly delivered.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
Read
November 27, 2020The following reviews are shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Peace
'Disher is the gold standard for rural noir.’
Chris Hammer
‘There is no peace for a good man when the mercury rises, tempers fray and violence simmers. This is a scorchingly good novel.’
Michael Robotham
‘Peace tells the story of a cop exiled to a wounded town in South Australia’s dry country. In this brilliant novel Disher takes his readers on a harrowing journey.’
Jock Serong
‘I loved Peace. It is an an uplifting book, an utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity. If you enjoyed Jane Harper’s The Lost Man, this novel is for you.’
Dervla McTiernan
‘Mark Peace down as one to look out for, and if you have not already done so, give Bitter Wash Road a read, you won’t be disappointed.’
Jeff Popple
'The cast of Peace is strong and the local colour is as vivid as ever. Disher was portraying the harshness of the Australian landscape long before Jane Harper's The Dry ignited a new wave of Australian crime fiction, and fans of her work, and Chris Hammer's Scrublands, will find much to enjoy here. Disher provides the complete mystery package: unobtrusively slick detection, plenty of surprises and mounting thrills, with a protagonist that demonstrates a remarkable level of humanity.’
Books+Publishing
‘Gripping…Disher is a master of the cliffhanger chapter ending, skilfully ramping up the tension as the story progresses and keeping his readers guessing until the end.’
West Weekend
‘Disher is one of Australia’s leading crime writers. ...Disher is brilliant at rural noir, capturing the stifling atmosphere of a small town where resentments simmer against the backdrop of an unforgiving landscape.’
The Times
‘In prose baked as hard as the sun-scorched outback, Disher summons up the muggy oppressiveness of a small town with years of buried secrets, a veteran crime writer who knows how to expertly tie together the disparate threads of his narrative.’
Scotland Herald
'Disher is the gold standard for rural noir.’
Chris Hammer
‘There is no peace for a good man when the mercury rises, tempers fray and violence simmers. This is a scorchingly good novel.’
Michael Robotham
‘Peace tells the story of a cop exiled to a wounded town in South Australia’s dry country. In this brilliant novel Disher takes his readers on a harrowing journey.’
Jock Serong
‘I loved Peace. It is an an uplifting book, an utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity. If you enjoyed Jane Harper’s The Lost Man, this novel is for you.’
Dervla McTiernan
‘Mark Peace down as one to look out for, and if you have not already done so, give Bitter Wash Road a read, you won’t be disappointed.’
Jeff Popple
'The cast of Peace is strong and the local colour is as vivid as ever. Disher was portraying the harshness of the Australian landscape long before Jane Harper's The Dry ignited a new wave of Australian crime fiction, and fans of her work, and Chris Hammer's Scrublands, will find much to enjoy here. Disher provides the complete mystery package: unobtrusively slick detection, plenty of surprises and mounting thrills, with a protagonist that demonstrates a remarkable level of humanity.’
Books+Publishing
‘Gripping…Disher is a master of the cliffhanger chapter ending, skilfully ramping up the tension as the story progresses and keeping his readers guessing until the end.’
West Weekend
‘Disher is one of Australia’s leading crime writers. ...Disher is brilliant at rural noir, capturing the stifling atmosphere of a small town where resentments simmer against the backdrop of an unforgiving landscape.’
The Times
‘In prose baked as hard as the sun-scorched outback, Disher summons up the muggy oppressiveness of a small town with years of buried secrets, a veteran crime writer who knows how to expertly tie together the disparate threads of his narrative.’
Scotland Herald
December 27, 2020
This book is right up there with Scrublands for me! A brutal crime in a remote farming district in Southern Australia. "Hirsch" the local policeman is bearing the drudgery of life as a sole policeman in a small town. On doing his 'rounds' of check ins with the outer lying farms he finds a few things that don't quite add up. Then returns to town to find a toddler locked in a car in the heat. This one act of saving the child triggers off a chain of events that quickly has him run off his feet.
The author clearly understands life in a small rural community. He captures the good and the bad, the remoteness, the small mindedness and big heart that many of these communities have. I really enjoyed this, despite not having read the first book Bitter Wash Road.
Great story, highly recommended!
The author clearly understands life in a small rural community. He captures the good and the bad, the remoteness, the small mindedness and big heart that many of these communities have. I really enjoyed this, despite not having read the first book Bitter Wash Road.
Great story, highly recommended!
September 25, 2020
“Everyone lied, every day – especially to the police. A one-off, outright lie, from someone unused to lying, could often be identified and disproved. Constant and habitual lying was harder to recognise, let alone challenge, because the liar no longer saw a distinction between a lie and the truth. They were all just words deployed in the interests of survival. In any case, most people lied some of the time, generally layering it with the truth to deflect blame, to sugar-coat their cowardice or stupidity.”
Peace is the second book in the Paul Hirschhausen series by popular Australian author, Garry Disher. The audio version is perfectly read by Steve Shanahan. Hirsch has been in Tiverton, in the South Australian mallee, a bit over a year now, and he’s doing his best to establish a working relationship with the locals, even to the extent of (not-quite-willingly) putting on a Santa suit. He enjoys his extended patrols of the area and connecting with the people who need him. In the week before Christmas, no excitement would be welcome, but is apparently too much to wish for.
The drunk driving into the pub veranda and the toddler in the hot car are handled as professionally as possible; a skip of stolen copper is a puzzle, as is a beaten pet dog, but a few days on brings a much more shocking case of animal cruelty. And then, on Christmas Day, a request from Sydney Police to do a welfare check on an isolated family results in a grisly discovery.
As the brass descend on Hirsch’s little patch, it’s apparent that some have not forgotten the reason he was relegated to Tiverton, but others seem to have an unknown agenda, and Hirsch wonders just why this little family had fled to his corner of the state.
Disher is a master of descriptive prose and expertly conveys the atmosphere and attitude of the rural town: his cast of townspeople will likely be familiar to anyone who has visited such a place. Snippets from Mrs Keir’s 19th Century journal about the local area enhance the text.
While Hirsch is mostly a by-the-book cop, he knows nothing is black and white, especially in rural policing, and is willing to make a judgement call, to adjust his policing to suit the situation, even if it sometimes comes back to bite him. He is certainly a likeable character, deserving of a little romantic joy with Wendy, and his dry inner monologue is often a delight.
The reader should not allow the fairly benign start, filled with quite a few darkly funny moments, to lull them into complacency, because soon the action becomes edge-of-the-seat stuff, building to a nail-biting climax, and the reader will be kept enthralled right up to the very satisfying final page. Brilliant Aussie rural noir that will have fans saying: more Hirsch please, Mr Disher!
Peace is the second book in the Paul Hirschhausen series by popular Australian author, Garry Disher. The audio version is perfectly read by Steve Shanahan. Hirsch has been in Tiverton, in the South Australian mallee, a bit over a year now, and he’s doing his best to establish a working relationship with the locals, even to the extent of (not-quite-willingly) putting on a Santa suit. He enjoys his extended patrols of the area and connecting with the people who need him. In the week before Christmas, no excitement would be welcome, but is apparently too much to wish for.
The drunk driving into the pub veranda and the toddler in the hot car are handled as professionally as possible; a skip of stolen copper is a puzzle, as is a beaten pet dog, but a few days on brings a much more shocking case of animal cruelty. And then, on Christmas Day, a request from Sydney Police to do a welfare check on an isolated family results in a grisly discovery.
As the brass descend on Hirsch’s little patch, it’s apparent that some have not forgotten the reason he was relegated to Tiverton, but others seem to have an unknown agenda, and Hirsch wonders just why this little family had fled to his corner of the state.
Disher is a master of descriptive prose and expertly conveys the atmosphere and attitude of the rural town: his cast of townspeople will likely be familiar to anyone who has visited such a place. Snippets from Mrs Keir’s 19th Century journal about the local area enhance the text.
While Hirsch is mostly a by-the-book cop, he knows nothing is black and white, especially in rural policing, and is willing to make a judgement call, to adjust his policing to suit the situation, even if it sometimes comes back to bite him. He is certainly a likeable character, deserving of a little romantic joy with Wendy, and his dry inner monologue is often a delight.
The reader should not allow the fairly benign start, filled with quite a few darkly funny moments, to lull them into complacency, because soon the action becomes edge-of-the-seat stuff, building to a nail-biting climax, and the reader will be kept enthralled right up to the very satisfying final page. Brilliant Aussie rural noir that will have fans saying: more Hirsch please, Mr Disher!
September 25, 2020
“Everyone lied, every day – especially to the police. A one-off, outright lie, from someone unused to lying, could often be identified and disproved. Constant and habitual lying was harder to recognise, let alone challenge, because the liar no longer saw a distinction between a lie and the truth. They were all just words deployed in the interests of survival. In any case, most people lied some of the time, generally layering it with the truth to deflect blame, to sugar-coat their cowardice or stupidity.”
Peace is the second book in the Paul Hirschhausen series by popular Australian author, Garry Disher. Hirsch has been in Tiverton, in the South Australian mallee, a bit over a year now, and he’s doing his best to establish a working relationship with the locals, even to the extent of (not-quite-willingly) putting on a Santa suit. He enjoys his extended patrols of the area and connecting with the people who need him. In the week before Christmas, no excitement would be welcome, but is apparently too much to wish for.
The drunk driving into the pub veranda and the toddler in the hot car are handled as professionally as possible; a skip of stolen copper is a puzzle, as is a beaten pet dog, but a few days on brings a much more shocking case of animal cruelty. And then, on Christmas Day, a request from Sydney Police to do a welfare check on an isolated family results in a grisly discovery.
As the brass descend on Hirsch’s little patch, it’s apparent that some have not forgotten the reason he was relegated to Tiverton, but others seem to have an unknown agenda, and Hirsch wonders just why this little family had fled to his corner of the state.
Disher is a master of descriptive prose and expertly conveys the atmosphere and attitude of the rural town: his cast of townspeople will likely be familiar to anyone who has visited such a place. Snippets from Mrs Keir’s 19th Century journal about the local area enhance the text.
While Hirsch is mostly a by-the-book cop, he knows nothing is black and white, especially in rural policing, and is willing to make a judgement call, to adjust his policing to suit the situation, even if it sometimes comes back to bite him. He is certainly a likeable character, deserving of a little romantic joy with Wendy, and his dry inner monologue is often a delight.
The reader should not allow the fairly benign start, filled with quite a few darkly funny moments, to lull them into complacency, because soon the action becomes edge-of-the-seat stuff, building to a nail-biting climax, and the reader will be kept enthralled right up to the very satisfying final page. Brilliant Aussie rural noir that will have fans saying: more Hirsch please, Mr Disher!
This unbiased review is from a copy provided Text Publishing.
Peace is the second book in the Paul Hirschhausen series by popular Australian author, Garry Disher. Hirsch has been in Tiverton, in the South Australian mallee, a bit over a year now, and he’s doing his best to establish a working relationship with the locals, even to the extent of (not-quite-willingly) putting on a Santa suit. He enjoys his extended patrols of the area and connecting with the people who need him. In the week before Christmas, no excitement would be welcome, but is apparently too much to wish for.
The drunk driving into the pub veranda and the toddler in the hot car are handled as professionally as possible; a skip of stolen copper is a puzzle, as is a beaten pet dog, but a few days on brings a much more shocking case of animal cruelty. And then, on Christmas Day, a request from Sydney Police to do a welfare check on an isolated family results in a grisly discovery.
As the brass descend on Hirsch’s little patch, it’s apparent that some have not forgotten the reason he was relegated to Tiverton, but others seem to have an unknown agenda, and Hirsch wonders just why this little family had fled to his corner of the state.
Disher is a master of descriptive prose and expertly conveys the atmosphere and attitude of the rural town: his cast of townspeople will likely be familiar to anyone who has visited such a place. Snippets from Mrs Keir’s 19th Century journal about the local area enhance the text.
While Hirsch is mostly a by-the-book cop, he knows nothing is black and white, especially in rural policing, and is willing to make a judgement call, to adjust his policing to suit the situation, even if it sometimes comes back to bite him. He is certainly a likeable character, deserving of a little romantic joy with Wendy, and his dry inner monologue is often a delight.
The reader should not allow the fairly benign start, filled with quite a few darkly funny moments, to lull them into complacency, because soon the action becomes edge-of-the-seat stuff, building to a nail-biting climax, and the reader will be kept enthralled right up to the very satisfying final page. Brilliant Aussie rural noir that will have fans saying: more Hirsch please, Mr Disher!
This unbiased review is from a copy provided Text Publishing.
October 16, 2023
This was another strong instalment in Garry Disher's Paul Hirschhausen series.
Disher captures the essence of small-town country Australia, both as a setting and in terms of characters. Constable Hirschhausen's travels to carry out "welfare checks" and investigate minor criminal matters throughout his wide jurisdiction bring him into contact with all sorts - farming families struggling to maintain a livelihood, juvenile delinquents, charming ratbags, lost tourists, the list goes on...
As the book opens, "Hirsch" attends a small scrub fire and finds a cache of stolen copper wire. He finds and returns a prize sheepdog, missing for several days. A drunk local woman drives her already battered car into the verandah of the local pub. He rescues a toddler, left locked in an overheated car while a nervous newcomer visits the doctor. He locates a stolen and abandoned ute and lets the teenage miscreants responsible off with a warning and an apology to the owner. Doing his best to forge links in the community, Hirsch plays Santa for the local kids, judges Tiverton's Christmas lights competition and takes part in a working bee at the local tennis club. His relationship with high-school teacher Wendy continues on from Bitter Wash Road and he enjoys spending time with her and her precocious daughter, Katie - whenever his being on-call 24 hours a day doesn't spoil their plans.
But in the days before Christmas, things turn darker... Several miniature horses owned by local personality Nancy "Nan" Washburn are attacked for reasons unknown. Then Hirsch carries out a welfare check on an isolated property on Christmas morning and finds two bodies. It becomes apparent that two young girls are unaccounted for. As local and interstate police descend on Tiverton, Hirsch's judgment and capabilities are repeatedly questioned and undermined.
Again, I found Disher's plotting and character development really high-quality. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story, and second-guessing of various characters' bona fides. Hirsch is a complex and engaging character, and I can't wait for the next instalment in the series to become available!
Re-read in October 2020 in anticipation of UK release. My thanks to the author Garry Disher, UK publisher Serpent's Tail / Profile Books and Viper and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication.
Disher captures the essence of small-town country Australia, both as a setting and in terms of characters. Constable Hirschhausen's travels to carry out "welfare checks" and investigate minor criminal matters throughout his wide jurisdiction bring him into contact with all sorts - farming families struggling to maintain a livelihood, juvenile delinquents, charming ratbags, lost tourists, the list goes on...
As the book opens, "Hirsch" attends a small scrub fire and finds a cache of stolen copper wire. He finds and returns a prize sheepdog, missing for several days. A drunk local woman drives her already battered car into the verandah of the local pub. He rescues a toddler, left locked in an overheated car while a nervous newcomer visits the doctor. He locates a stolen and abandoned ute and lets the teenage miscreants responsible off with a warning and an apology to the owner. Doing his best to forge links in the community, Hirsch plays Santa for the local kids, judges Tiverton's Christmas lights competition and takes part in a working bee at the local tennis club. His relationship with high-school teacher Wendy continues on from Bitter Wash Road and he enjoys spending time with her and her precocious daughter, Katie - whenever his being on-call 24 hours a day doesn't spoil their plans.
But in the days before Christmas, things turn darker... Several miniature horses owned by local personality Nancy "Nan" Washburn are attacked for reasons unknown. Then Hirsch carries out a welfare check on an isolated property on Christmas morning and finds two bodies. It becomes apparent that two young girls are unaccounted for. As local and interstate police descend on Tiverton, Hirsch's judgment and capabilities are repeatedly questioned and undermined.
Again, I found Disher's plotting and character development really high-quality. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story, and second-guessing of various characters' bona fides. Hirsch is a complex and engaging character, and I can't wait for the next instalment in the series to become available!
Re-read in October 2020 in anticipation of UK release. My thanks to the author Garry Disher, UK publisher Serpent's Tail / Profile Books and Viper and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication.
August 31, 2022
Season’s Greetings from Tiverton, Australia!
Constable Paul Hirschhausen didn’t exactly choose to become the sole representative of the Law for Tiverton, a small community in the semi-deserted Outback of south-east Australia. He has been demoted from the big city police force of Melbourne after his unit was broken up for corruption.
In the first book of the series, Paul tries to adapt to his new surroundings, hoping for some peace and quiet in the remote frontier town, but big crime follows him here. Paul has to struggle him against suspicious local cops from nearby towns and with vengeful former colleagues who suspect Paul of being a stool pigeon.
Halfway up a sloping hillside a motionless dust cloud. A vehicle on a dirt road? A wind eddy? It all seemed unknowable, a world poised for action, but unable to proceed. Hirsch had been the Tiverton cop for one year now and was waiting for a mutual embrace, but the place kept him at arm’s length. If life was the search for a true home – a welcoming place, a constant lover or a mind at peace – then he was still looking.
A year later, and with his first case more or less successfully concluded, the newly minted ‘sheriff’ of Tiverton is making slow progress with the local population and looks forward to some fence mending and some bond building over the Christmas and New Year celebrations: Paul has even volunteered to play Santa Claus for the Tiverton kids, not knowing he is supposed to arrive on horseback!
But this is the Antipodes, and whatever expectations the regular reader has of a White Christmas, reindeers and baked apples, Paul has to deal to extreme drought, sun stroke and even a monstrous attacks against innocent small ponies. Whatever peace and quiet our sheriff was looking forward to is lost when the big guns from Melbourne sent him on a routine check to an isolated farm that hides a gruesome multiple murder.
>>><<<>>><<<
I made some references here to Westerns, knowing very well that the story is actually a murder mystery. But the remote location, the isolated community, the massive role the environment [the Big Country] plays in the proceedings, the Lone Lawman fighting against Bad Guys: all contribute to my personal shelving of the series along the likes of Cork O’Connor [William Kent Krueger] and Walt Longmire [Craig Johnson], both of which I hold in pretty high regard, at least in the earlier episodes.
Garry Disher is even better than the two similar authors I mention here. It’s not easy to come up with a clever murder mystery in such small places where everybody knows everybody else’s business, and it’s even harder to get the setting and its people right. The voice, the personality of the lead character is probably the most important aspects of the story for me in whether I get engaged in the events, in the life of the community or not. I often find myself less interested in the actual criminal investigation from these ‘western-murder’ series because this is often the aspect of the novel that is the least surprising, but in Garry Disher case, both the books I read so far are not only clever, complex and filled with human interest angles, but also surprising to this reader who has probably read too many similar stories.
Without going into the particulars of the present novel, Paul Hirschhausen [I hope I can find a way to avoid checking my spelling every time I try to mention the cop’s family name] reads a little like a Scandinavian kind of cop: mostly silent, more than a little depressive with his personal life in shambles, but professional and determined and observant of the minor details that often hold the key to the case.
The author really knows how to present these clues, not too cleverly hidden but also not too obvious, enough to make the reader guess at the identity of the culprits but not enough to make it certain and spoil the joy of later confirmation. At least this is what happened with me in the episode, with both the murder case and with the animal cruelty case.
The secondary story arcs about ‘sheriff’ Paul’s efforts to be accepted in the community are the cherry on the cake of a series that steadily grows on me and looks poised to replace the other two [Krueger and Johnson] that have started to go downhill in quality.
November 19, 2020
He liked to walk every morning, the dawn a time to cherish with only the birds busy, the air quite still and everything sharply etched…by 9 a. m. the mid-north would be lying limp and stunned beneath a molten sun and the overnight reports of villainy, idiocy and shitty luck would have landed on his desk.
Following on from Bitter Wash Road, one-time Adelaide detective, Paul Hirschhausen, is now demoted to Constable in a one-officer town of Tiverton, south of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, after whistle-blowing on corrupt city detectives. His patrol area is as huge as the problems that go with it, his nearest back-up the three officer-strong station at Redruth, an hour away. With Christmas approaching he is roped in to working bees and playing Santa in the small town, but in his limited downtime there’s a growing relationship with Wendy Street and her daughter, Katie.
“Peace” is what he wishes for, but there is little chance of that as he attends a spate of incidents, from reuniting a lost dog with its grateful owners, arson and stolen copper wiring, theft and vandalism, and a drunken woman crashing her car into the local pub. And then events take a deadlier turn, with several miniature horses slashed and left for dead (bringing in a hungry press). When his sergeant in Redruth receives a call from Sydney, requesting a welfare check on a family staying at a remote farmhouse, Paul is closest, discovering the double murder of a mother and son. Now detectives from Port Pirie and Sydney arrive on the scene, while Paul assists in a ground-search for the family’s two missing daughters, trying to determine if this was a domestic violence incident, or was the family under the witness protection program?
This is character-driven drama at its best. Interfering neighbours, petty jealousies, the work-shy and the shifty, drug-fuelled violence, written in a sparse narrative style that captures the soul of many outback towns. Outside the local institute:
– a white stone soldier stood, head bowed, above a granite memorial. A World War II cannon on a patchy lawn, lavender bushes, rose bushes, a slender column on either side of the main door.
Inside, he discovers the handwritten account of the history of Keirville Station 1839-69: shedding light on a time when even harsher conditions (and attitudes) prevailed. But long hours are spent in his vehicle, crossing an unforgiving landscape.
He barely climbed out of third gear for the first half hour, the HiLux creaking and flexing like a stiff little ship in pitching seas, but eventually he reached a lonely intersection where a bunch of dead flowers rested on the grassy verge. Someone had died in a car wreck here, meaning that other poor souls continued to grieve.
Verdict: 5 stars.
Following on from Bitter Wash Road, one-time Adelaide detective, Paul Hirschhausen, is now demoted to Constable in a one-officer town of Tiverton, south of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, after whistle-blowing on corrupt city detectives. His patrol area is as huge as the problems that go with it, his nearest back-up the three officer-strong station at Redruth, an hour away. With Christmas approaching he is roped in to working bees and playing Santa in the small town, but in his limited downtime there’s a growing relationship with Wendy Street and her daughter, Katie.
“Peace” is what he wishes for, but there is little chance of that as he attends a spate of incidents, from reuniting a lost dog with its grateful owners, arson and stolen copper wiring, theft and vandalism, and a drunken woman crashing her car into the local pub. And then events take a deadlier turn, with several miniature horses slashed and left for dead (bringing in a hungry press). When his sergeant in Redruth receives a call from Sydney, requesting a welfare check on a family staying at a remote farmhouse, Paul is closest, discovering the double murder of a mother and son. Now detectives from Port Pirie and Sydney arrive on the scene, while Paul assists in a ground-search for the family’s two missing daughters, trying to determine if this was a domestic violence incident, or was the family under the witness protection program?
This is character-driven drama at its best. Interfering neighbours, petty jealousies, the work-shy and the shifty, drug-fuelled violence, written in a sparse narrative style that captures the soul of many outback towns. Outside the local institute:
– a white stone soldier stood, head bowed, above a granite memorial. A World War II cannon on a patchy lawn, lavender bushes, rose bushes, a slender column on either side of the main door.
Inside, he discovers the handwritten account of the history of Keirville Station 1839-69: shedding light on a time when even harsher conditions (and attitudes) prevailed. But long hours are spent in his vehicle, crossing an unforgiving landscape.
He barely climbed out of third gear for the first half hour, the HiLux creaking and flexing like a stiff little ship in pitching seas, but eventually he reached a lonely intersection where a bunch of dead flowers rested on the grassy verge. Someone had died in a car wreck here, meaning that other poor souls continued to grieve.
Verdict: 5 stars.
December 29, 2019
I deliberately chose to read Peace as my last book of 2019 for a few reasons but notably because it’s set over the Christmas/New Year period in Australia, and because I thought the title was a positive message of sorts to end the year on.
However, I finished it a little later than I had hoped to get a review posted in a timely manner, so for the moment these comments are a placeholder of sorts.
In summary this is an excellent book, certainly on par with Chris Hammer’s Scrubland and Jane Harper’s The Dry. I think it is a little darker and grittier than both, as is the first book featuring police officer Paul Hirschhausen, Bitter Wash Road. The mystery’s are interesting and paced well. The descriptions evoke the isolated, hot, economically depressed South Australian regional town in which it’s set, and the characterisation is well done.
Compelling reading, definitely recommended…more later.
However, I finished it a little later than I had hoped to get a review posted in a timely manner, so for the moment these comments are a placeholder of sorts.
In summary this is an excellent book, certainly on par with Chris Hammer’s Scrubland and Jane Harper’s The Dry. I think it is a little darker and grittier than both, as is the first book featuring police officer Paul Hirschhausen, Bitter Wash Road. The mystery’s are interesting and paced well. The descriptions evoke the isolated, hot, economically depressed South Australian regional town in which it’s set, and the characterisation is well done.
Compelling reading, definitely recommended…more later.
August 26, 2020
Another great Aussie crime book. This is the second book by Garry Disher to feature Hirsh. I have not read the first book but this read fine as a stand alone. I will however go back and read the first book and learn more about the characters.
Hirsh is the lone law man in the small town of Tiverton is South Australia. His usual days are drunk drivers, welfare checks and keeping an eye on the locals. Except on Christmas Day when he gets a call from Sydney police to do a welfare check on a family that are out of the way. What he finds when he get so there is shocking and dark, and the case begins.
I really enjoy Aussie crime and will definitely read more of this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and Viper for my advanced copy of this book to read.
Hirsh is the lone law man in the small town of Tiverton is South Australia. His usual days are drunk drivers, welfare checks and keeping an eye on the locals. Except on Christmas Day when he gets a call from Sydney police to do a welfare check on a family that are out of the way. What he finds when he get so there is shocking and dark, and the case begins.
I really enjoy Aussie crime and will definitely read more of this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and Viper for my advanced copy of this book to read.
September 20, 2020
I love nothing better than a compelling, gritty Australian thriller with an atmospheric setting, and I am happy to report that – TA DA! – this fitted that description to a T. An average rating of above 4 on Goodreads of the Paul Hirschhausen series should give you a good indication that this was a great read, and I am even more excited that there are already two more books out in this series!
Set in a remote, rural South Australian town, it doesn’t get more atmospheric than this. Farms affected by drought and its many repercussions, small town politics and a cop who has been posted there as a punishment all set the stage perfectly. Hirsch was an enigmatic character I liked immediately, and I don’t think that anything could really ruffle his feathers too much as he always keeps a calm and composed demeanour even in circumstances that made my blood boil just reading about them. Starting off slowly with descriptions of the one-cop town Hirsch has been stationed in, and brimming with interesting hardy Aussie characters like you only find in the bush, the book inexorably wove its spell over me. By the time the book released its true grittiness, I was well and truly hooked and could not put it down!
Seeing how much I love rural Aussie crime, I cannot believe that I have never read any other books by Garry Disher before! It is obvious that he has an innate understanding of the bush and what makes people in rural areas of this vast land tick, because each and every character literally leapt off the pages. Some were so authentic that I was sure I had met them at some point during our own stints of living in remote Australia, which made it even more intriguing. But even if you have never set foot on Australian soil, Disher’s vivid descriptions of his setting and his cleverly constructed plot will soon catch you in their intricately woven web. For fans of more hyped up books, such as THE DRY or SCRUBLANDS, this is a must read! Am willing to bet that you will enjoy this gritty tale equally as much.
All in all, PEACE should be on every bookshelf of readers who love rural noir or who appreciate a great atmospheric small town setting. Don’t be fooled by the book’s innocuous start, because the gritty bits will soon be washed in by the tide and you will be swept up by the story and dumped back to shore, emotionally wrung out and probably tired from reading all night! I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the other books in the series.
Thank you to Netgalley and Serpent's Tail for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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Set in a remote, rural South Australian town, it doesn’t get more atmospheric than this. Farms affected by drought and its many repercussions, small town politics and a cop who has been posted there as a punishment all set the stage perfectly. Hirsch was an enigmatic character I liked immediately, and I don’t think that anything could really ruffle his feathers too much as he always keeps a calm and composed demeanour even in circumstances that made my blood boil just reading about them. Starting off slowly with descriptions of the one-cop town Hirsch has been stationed in, and brimming with interesting hardy Aussie characters like you only find in the bush, the book inexorably wove its spell over me. By the time the book released its true grittiness, I was well and truly hooked and could not put it down!
Seeing how much I love rural Aussie crime, I cannot believe that I have never read any other books by Garry Disher before! It is obvious that he has an innate understanding of the bush and what makes people in rural areas of this vast land tick, because each and every character literally leapt off the pages. Some were so authentic that I was sure I had met them at some point during our own stints of living in remote Australia, which made it even more intriguing. But even if you have never set foot on Australian soil, Disher’s vivid descriptions of his setting and his cleverly constructed plot will soon catch you in their intricately woven web. For fans of more hyped up books, such as THE DRY or SCRUBLANDS, this is a must read! Am willing to bet that you will enjoy this gritty tale equally as much.
All in all, PEACE should be on every bookshelf of readers who love rural noir or who appreciate a great atmospheric small town setting. Don’t be fooled by the book’s innocuous start, because the gritty bits will soon be washed in by the tide and you will be swept up by the story and dumped back to shore, emotionally wrung out and probably tired from reading all night! I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the other books in the series.
Thank you to Netgalley and Serpent's Tail for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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November 3, 2019
When Garry Disher won the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award, he was described by the Australian Crime Writers Association as ‘a giant not only of crime fiction but of Australian letters’. With over 50 titles published across multiple genres, he is best known for his rural noir – gritty crime novels set in the Australian outback. His latest book Peace (Text 2019), a follow-up to his popular Bitter Wash Road, again features Constable Paul Hirshhausen, banished after a scandal to running a one-cop station in the tiny community of Tiverton in the Flinders Rangers. Hirsh is a blow-in – he’s only been in town a year – but he is finally starting to get to know the locals and to earn some grudging acceptance and respect. He turns up for community working bees, and travels long hours on dusty roads to conduct welfare checks on lonely or vulnerable people living on isolated farmsteads.
Mostly his days are long, banal and predictable – some graffiti on a barn, a stolen power tool, neighbours complaining about noise. But it is the lead-up to Christmas and as the heat is building, so is his workload. Two boys steal a ute, he has a grass fire to deal with, and a local woman decides to ‘enter the front bar of the pub without exiting her car’. The local sticky-beaks are taking photos and voicing their complaints and Hirsh is doing his best to keep calm and cool. All of this is the backdrop to what is to come – a terribly brutal and strange incident on a property in town that has everyone scratching their heads, and the big guns from Sydney police asking about a family living on an isolated back road on the fringes of town. Hirsh is immersed into the investigations of several crimes, which he realises have their roots much deeper than the little town of Tiverton.
Garry Disher writes very engaging small-town characters, full of flaws and foibles; everyone knowing everyone else’s business, or choosing to comment on it even if they don’t. His protagonist Hirsh, demoted after the embarrassing city business, is endearing – plodding along, trying to do his best, sometimes failing, always aware that he is letting someone down. At one point, when someone asks him whether he thought to bring leather gloves, he thinks: ‘No, Hirsh hadn’t thought to bring leather gloves – or any kind of gloves. His life was full of things he hadn’t thought to do, and things he knew he ought to have done.’ The dialogue is outstanding, perfectly pitched and sharp; Disher has a finely attuned ear for the disparate voices in the novel. And he has a very droll sense of humour.
Disher is a master at understatement, describing a landscape and people with great detail and then throwing in, almost as an afterthought, the fact that he can also see a gaping wound or evidence of a gunshot or some other act of violence. And the plot is everything you would expect from a good crime novel – some horrifying opening incidents that draw you right into this world, a slow burn of investigation, suspects, victims, clues and possible motives, and a successful resolution at the end, while leaving plenty of scope for further books in this series.
An interesting addition is the journal or diary entries of Mrs Elizabeth Keir from the mid 1800’s, which he discovers and are then interspersed throughout the story, mostly deriding the ‘natives’. These passages highlight the past and its connection to the contemporary.
Mostly his days are long, banal and predictable – some graffiti on a barn, a stolen power tool, neighbours complaining about noise. But it is the lead-up to Christmas and as the heat is building, so is his workload. Two boys steal a ute, he has a grass fire to deal with, and a local woman decides to ‘enter the front bar of the pub without exiting her car’. The local sticky-beaks are taking photos and voicing their complaints and Hirsh is doing his best to keep calm and cool. All of this is the backdrop to what is to come – a terribly brutal and strange incident on a property in town that has everyone scratching their heads, and the big guns from Sydney police asking about a family living on an isolated back road on the fringes of town. Hirsh is immersed into the investigations of several crimes, which he realises have their roots much deeper than the little town of Tiverton.
Garry Disher writes very engaging small-town characters, full of flaws and foibles; everyone knowing everyone else’s business, or choosing to comment on it even if they don’t. His protagonist Hirsh, demoted after the embarrassing city business, is endearing – plodding along, trying to do his best, sometimes failing, always aware that he is letting someone down. At one point, when someone asks him whether he thought to bring leather gloves, he thinks: ‘No, Hirsh hadn’t thought to bring leather gloves – or any kind of gloves. His life was full of things he hadn’t thought to do, and things he knew he ought to have done.’ The dialogue is outstanding, perfectly pitched and sharp; Disher has a finely attuned ear for the disparate voices in the novel. And he has a very droll sense of humour.
Disher is a master at understatement, describing a landscape and people with great detail and then throwing in, almost as an afterthought, the fact that he can also see a gaping wound or evidence of a gunshot or some other act of violence. And the plot is everything you would expect from a good crime novel – some horrifying opening incidents that draw you right into this world, a slow burn of investigation, suspects, victims, clues and possible motives, and a successful resolution at the end, while leaving plenty of scope for further books in this series.
An interesting addition is the journal or diary entries of Mrs Elizabeth Keir from the mid 1800’s, which he discovers and are then interspersed throughout the story, mostly deriding the ‘natives’. These passages highlight the past and its connection to the contemporary.
January 17, 2020
A clear and shiny five star read. One of those books that pulls you back in like a magnet. Lovely slow burning and when with lots of beautifully rendered characters. This is small outback town Australia done so well! Loved Jane Harper's books and not discovered this guy, then like me you've been missing out. Yes, a bit of a gush from me but this book is just so very well written and good.
You meet the cop that every small town deserves, you meet the most incredibly annoying character I've met recently and you watch this lovely cop handle him. You meet the locals, in all their outback, bogan glory as well as those who are deserving of a place in your heart.
This is just the very best of Australian crime fiction and you should all go and get hold of it and devour it right now. Trust me!
You meet the cop that every small town deserves, you meet the most incredibly annoying character I've met recently and you watch this lovely cop handle him. You meet the locals, in all their outback, bogan glory as well as those who are deserving of a place in your heart.
This is just the very best of Australian crime fiction and you should all go and get hold of it and devour it right now. Trust me!
November 9, 2020
While several fresh antipodean voices have recently garnered global attention and accolades for their outstanding tales set in rural Australia - from the CWA Dagger-winning novels of Jane Harper and Chris Hammer to even more recently the likes of Gabriel Bergmoser with THE HUNTED - Garry Disher shows once again in PEACE why he’s the master who paved the way.
Put simply - this is a superb tale where the violence simmers in a small community and the heat haze shimmers from the page. Right from the opening lines its clear you’re in the hands of a consummate storyteller.
A couple of years ago Disher received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award, just recognition of a rich crime writing resume, and PEACE shows he ain’t resting on his laurels. It marks the return of likable police constable Paul ‘Hirsch’ Hirschhausen from 2013’s terrific BITTER WASH ROAD, which won the German Crime Prize.
Exiled from Adelaide to tiny Tiverton, Hirsch’s beat involves a lot of long drives, welfare calls, and dealing with drunken shenanigans. At times his biggest stress may be playing Santa or doing his share at a community work bee. But things take a far nastier turn when someone brutally attacks Nan Washburn’s horses, and then a secretive family on the outskirts of town suffers violence that brings big-city detectives to town.
Disher delivers dirt-caked authenticity with both the countryside setting and its eclectic inhabitants. Hirsch is an engaging hero full of humanity, juggling small-town politics and trying to handle the nastiest of crimes while being marginalised by colleagues who still blame him for the fall of other cops, corrupt or not. Disher has produced another classic.
Put simply - this is a superb tale where the violence simmers in a small community and the heat haze shimmers from the page. Right from the opening lines its clear you’re in the hands of a consummate storyteller.
A couple of years ago Disher received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award, just recognition of a rich crime writing resume, and PEACE shows he ain’t resting on his laurels. It marks the return of likable police constable Paul ‘Hirsch’ Hirschhausen from 2013’s terrific BITTER WASH ROAD, which won the German Crime Prize.
Exiled from Adelaide to tiny Tiverton, Hirsch’s beat involves a lot of long drives, welfare calls, and dealing with drunken shenanigans. At times his biggest stress may be playing Santa or doing his share at a community work bee. But things take a far nastier turn when someone brutally attacks Nan Washburn’s horses, and then a secretive family on the outskirts of town suffers violence that brings big-city detectives to town.
Disher delivers dirt-caked authenticity with both the countryside setting and its eclectic inhabitants. Hirsch is an engaging hero full of humanity, juggling small-town politics and trying to handle the nastiest of crimes while being marginalised by colleagues who still blame him for the fall of other cops, corrupt or not. Disher has produced another classic.
August 7, 2021
In this second book in the series featuring South Australia country cop Paul Hirschhausen, the usual comparatively minor incidents that take up Paul's time become more serious and more sinister as he ends up investigating an appalling case involving the mutilation of several horses and there is a double shooting at an isolated farmhouse. The shooting involved a woman who had been involved in an earlier incident when Paul was called to a locked car with a child inside in the peak of the summer heat - after a confrontation and struggle with the mother, who ended up with Paul's handgun in her hands, a video is posted to YouTube - and several days later the woman and her teenage son are shot dead and her two daughters missing. Amid suspicions of witness protection, Paul's quiet existence is disturbed by the descent of senior officers and another team of investigators from Sydney. Due to his past, Paul is repeatedly picked up by his superiors on minor issues but continues his search for the young girls and for the truth....
Another great crime thriller - wonderful setting and brilliant characters who I am now feeling a great affinity for after the first two books. Looking forward to reading the third one if I can get hold of it at a reasonable price here in the UK! Unfortunately not an author my library stocks!! - 9.5/10.
Another great crime thriller - wonderful setting and brilliant characters who I am now feeling a great affinity for after the first two books. Looking forward to reading the third one if I can get hold of it at a reasonable price here in the UK! Unfortunately not an author my library stocks!! - 9.5/10.
September 8, 2020
Bitter Wash Road, the first in this series,was one of my favourite reads of last year and here is book two which I also adored. Garry Disher writes beautifully with a quietly addictive style that pulls you into the story and you simply dont want to stop reading it until you are done.
The setting is so wonderful I kind of want to live there..although maybe minus the death and blood that occasionally happens - I'm such a huge fan of small town drama and aussie fiction currently that this was a pure joy to read first page to last.
The mix of the mundane and the more horrendous is cleverly achieved, all the characters pop from the page, especially our man Hirsch, local and often only copper, who seems to travel a lifetime every day, never knowing quite what will happen. He takes the reader on all those journeys with him, as he tries to leave the past behind him.
I won't give any plot away but the mystery element is pitch perfectly done and they have a differing sort of twist on your crime fiction tropes as Hirsch might be trying to find a killer but could just as easily be trying to track down a missing dog. Either way it is compelling and you'll be glued to the page.
Highly recommended.
The setting is so wonderful I kind of want to live there..although maybe minus the death and blood that occasionally happens - I'm such a huge fan of small town drama and aussie fiction currently that this was a pure joy to read first page to last.
The mix of the mundane and the more horrendous is cleverly achieved, all the characters pop from the page, especially our man Hirsch, local and often only copper, who seems to travel a lifetime every day, never knowing quite what will happen. He takes the reader on all those journeys with him, as he tries to leave the past behind him.
I won't give any plot away but the mystery element is pitch perfectly done and they have a differing sort of twist on your crime fiction tropes as Hirsch might be trying to find a killer but could just as easily be trying to track down a missing dog. Either way it is compelling and you'll be glued to the page.
Highly recommended.
February 1, 2020
First Sentence: This close to Christmas, the mid-north sun had some heft to it, house bricks, roofing iron, asphalt and the red-dirt plains giving back all the heat of all the days.
It has been a year since Constable Paul Hirschhausen was branded a whistleblower and transferred to a rural territory covering hundreds of kilometers. Except for his lover Wendy, and her daughter, Katie, he still doesn't feel welcome in Tiverton. However, between Brenda Flann driving into the front of the local bar, a stolen ute containing stolen metal, a ranch tragedy, a woman clearly hiding from someone, and a discovery which brings in way too many outside cops, and results in Hirsch forming an unexpected alliance.
Disher has a real skill for descriptions--'He liked to walk every morning, the dawn a time to cherish with only the birds busy, the air quite still and everything sharply etched. ...by 9 a.m. the mid-north would be lying limp and stunned beneath a molten sun and the overnight reports of villainy, idiocy and shitty luck would have landed on his desk."
Even his style creates reflects the location as the story begins more as a series of vignettes rather than one straight-line mystery. These are interesting and give a real sense of the types of things with which Hirsch has to deal, but one finds oneself waiting. It's interesting because it's so real.
Never fear, when the pieces start coming together, one realizes things aren't a tranquil as seemed and the level of involvement turns to high. "Peace inside. That's all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not a heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem."
Hirsch is such a well-done character. Although assigned to this one-man territory, he has the instincts of a city cop---"...the house felt unoccupied rather than touched by junkie-offspring violence, so he left it at that. It was a sense all cops developed, knowing when a situation behind closed doors was right or wrong."--but the compassion of a community policeman. There is a nice balance between his former colleagues who dislike or dismiss him and those who know and respect his capabilities. This establishes a basis for future relationship development.
The story has its share of dark elements, suspense, and unexpected twists, all of which are perfectly executed. "Peace is the second book in this series, with "Bitter Wash Road" having been the first. One need not have read that book to enjoy this one, but Disher is such a good writer, why not?
"Peace" is a thoroughly engrossing story shattering one's perceptions of a peaceful small town and of knowing who one can trust. It builds slowly with a number of seemingly unrelated incidents, only to have the pieces coalesce to a well-done ending.
PEACE (PolProc- Paul Hirschhausen-Australia-Contemp) – VG
Disher, Garry – 2nd in series
Text Publishing – 2019
It has been a year since Constable Paul Hirschhausen was branded a whistleblower and transferred to a rural territory covering hundreds of kilometers. Except for his lover Wendy, and her daughter, Katie, he still doesn't feel welcome in Tiverton. However, between Brenda Flann driving into the front of the local bar, a stolen ute containing stolen metal, a ranch tragedy, a woman clearly hiding from someone, and a discovery which brings in way too many outside cops, and results in Hirsch forming an unexpected alliance.
Disher has a real skill for descriptions--'He liked to walk every morning, the dawn a time to cherish with only the birds busy, the air quite still and everything sharply etched. ...by 9 a.m. the mid-north would be lying limp and stunned beneath a molten sun and the overnight reports of villainy, idiocy and shitty luck would have landed on his desk."
Even his style creates reflects the location as the story begins more as a series of vignettes rather than one straight-line mystery. These are interesting and give a real sense of the types of things with which Hirsch has to deal, but one finds oneself waiting. It's interesting because it's so real.
Never fear, when the pieces start coming together, one realizes things aren't a tranquil as seemed and the level of involvement turns to high. "Peace inside. That's all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not a heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem."
Hirsch is such a well-done character. Although assigned to this one-man territory, he has the instincts of a city cop---"...the house felt unoccupied rather than touched by junkie-offspring violence, so he left it at that. It was a sense all cops developed, knowing when a situation behind closed doors was right or wrong."--but the compassion of a community policeman. There is a nice balance between his former colleagues who dislike or dismiss him and those who know and respect his capabilities. This establishes a basis for future relationship development.
The story has its share of dark elements, suspense, and unexpected twists, all of which are perfectly executed. "Peace is the second book in this series, with "Bitter Wash Road" having been the first. One need not have read that book to enjoy this one, but Disher is such a good writer, why not?
"Peace" is a thoroughly engrossing story shattering one's perceptions of a peaceful small town and of knowing who one can trust. It builds slowly with a number of seemingly unrelated incidents, only to have the pieces coalesce to a well-done ending.
PEACE (PolProc- Paul Hirschhausen-Australia-Contemp) – VG
Disher, Garry – 2nd in series
Text Publishing – 2019
June 14, 2023
Paul Hirsch is still in Tiverton, still embroiled in day to day policing in a small town 200 kms north of Adelaide. It’s Christmas and he’s gearing up for the normal town activities including drunks and fights. What he didn’t count on was dead ponies and two dead bodies.
When the upper echelons fly in from Sydney, Paul’s once more in the pot light and wondering what’s going on!
Again another page turner.
When the upper echelons fly in from Sydney, Paul’s once more in the pot light and wondering what’s going on!
Again another page turner.
October 13, 2023
I'm developing quite a fondness for Australian crime thrillers. This is a new to me author, but the book made a big enough impression for me to want to seek out more from Disher. It started very slow, seemingly going through various unrelated mundane call-outs facing the sole cop in an isolated farming community. Of course as is the norm with this type of setting, everything and everyone were interconnected. Disher did a great job in buiding up the suspense as the dots were joined. Although I had an inkling of who the baddie was, there was still an element of surprise. He's left me curious to explore Constable Hirschhausen's backstory.
January 16, 2022
I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the first book in the series, probably because I had problems with the German narrator and because nothing really happened for the most part of the book.
For the most part of the book Paul was busy with the daily routine of a one-cop station in the dry farming country. Until something really bad happened and his special knowledge and instinct were needed.
It is not a book that can surprise you with the ending or resolution, here "the journey is the reward", you have just to like a slow pace of its unfolding story.
Story-4 stars
Audio book in German - 2 stars
***Fits into slot 19 of my Reading Challenge 2022 - A Book That Has An Alternate Title ***
December 21, 2019
Listened to the audiobook of this. Had to read Bitter Wash Road - the first Hirsch novel - before Peace. Garry Disher in fine form, never a straight forward thriller
April 26, 2020
Peace is book two in the Paul Hirschhausen series by Garry Disher. Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a peaceful life running the police station at Tiverton. However, Constable Paul Hirschhausen's quiet life changed when he did a welfare check on a family living outside of town. On arrival at the house, Constable Paul Hirschhausen found the mother murdered and the children missing. The readers of Peace will continue to follow Constable Paul Hirschhausen investigation into finding the children and the murder of their mother.
"Peace" is another fantastic book by Garry Disher. I love Garry Disher's portrayal of his characters and the way they intertwine with each other throughout this book. Garry Disher always engages me with the plots and the characters of his books. Peace is well written and researched by Garry Disher. I like the way Garry Disher described the settings of this book. Also, the description of the settings of this book allowed me to feel I am part of the story.
The readers of Peace will learn about running a one-person police station in rural Australia. Also, the readers will learn about the problems acholic can have on the suffering and everyone around them.
I recommend this book.
"Peace" is another fantastic book by Garry Disher. I love Garry Disher's portrayal of his characters and the way they intertwine with each other throughout this book. Garry Disher always engages me with the plots and the characters of his books. Peace is well written and researched by Garry Disher. I like the way Garry Disher described the settings of this book. Also, the description of the settings of this book allowed me to feel I am part of the story.
The readers of Peace will learn about running a one-person police station in rural Australia. Also, the readers will learn about the problems acholic can have on the suffering and everyone around them.
I recommend this book.
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