Since the 28th of August i have been on a bit of book reading frenzy…and being on holiday between the 30th of August and the 9th of September gave me plenty of time in between the Fedora Lounge get-together in Melbourne and the Fedora Lounge get-together in Sydney and driving the 1000 km’s (621 mi) between those lovely two towns and back again to knock over quite a few books.
While they are not from the 30’s or 40’s they are detective novels so i decided to re-read the Australian based Cliff Hardy detective series of novels written by Peter Corris that he started writing in 1980.
Cliff Hardy, born and raised in working class Maroubra, ex-army, law student dropout, insurance company investigator turned Private Eye, has a love-hate relationship with his time and place. He embraces the best aspects of Australian life – the tolerance, the classlessness, the vigorous urban and rural culture – while despising the greed and the conservatism that are constantly threatening to undercut what he sees as “real Australia”.
Inevitably drawn into the ambit of the people he deplores, Hardy struggles to resolve his cases while remaining true to his own threatened values. The professional challenges spill over into his personal life where he is never on firm ground.
I love this series and Peter Corris rates as one of my favourite authors…so in 12 days i managed to complete the first eight books:
The Dying Trade Hardy needs work. In fact, he’s the type of detective who never turns down a case. He can’t afford to.
So when wealthy Bryn Gutteridge, a real estate heir who amuses himself by shooting seagulls, asks Hardy to find out who has been threatening his twin sister, Susan, the private eye agrees.
And finds himself on a case that turns more brutal every day. First Gutteridge’s butler is murdered. Then his pretty young stepmother is badly beaten. Hardy himself takes a few punches. And before long it’s hard to tell the victims from the villains.
White Meat He needs a nice smooth job, something to pay the bills – and keep his glass filled.
But smooth this one isn’t. Ted Tarleton is a very rich bookie whose beautiful, spoiled daughter, Noni, is missing. Tarleton wants Hardy to find her. The logical place to start is with Noni’s boyfriend, but the actor has long since ceased to keep tabs on her.
So Hardy makes for seedy La Perouse, where the local aboriginals recognise Noni’s photo. She’s the one they call “white meat”. And Hardy will take more than a few blows as he follows her into the violent wreckage of her own past…
The Marvellous Boy It’s no secret that the people who hire Hardy have nowhere else to turn.
Take Lady Catherine Chatterton, widow of the eminent judge. She’s desperate to hand down the mantle of her husband’s legal reign (not to mention the money) to someone more deserving than her boozy daughter Bettina.
So she hires Hardy to find her missing grandson – a tall order considering the only evidence of the young man’s existence came two years earlier from an aging drunk. Funny thing – when Hardy finds that drunk there is a helpful photograph… and within the hour, the drunk is dead. Now Hardy’s on a murder case.
The Empty Beach It began as a routine investigation into a supposed drowning. But Cliff Hardy, private detective, soon found himself literally fighting for his life in the murky, violent underworld of Bondi.
The truth about John Singer, black marketeer and poker machine king, is out there somewhere – amidst the drug addicts and prostitutes and alcoholics. Hardy’s job is to stay alive long enough in that world of easy death to get to the truth.
The truth hurts…
Heroine Annie: Cliff Hardy cases He’s a one-man army for $125 a day, plus expenses, and Hardy was finding his fee harder to earn all the time.
From reformed junkies to high fashion models, from radical politics to corporate, every type of face with every type of problem eventually walked through Hardy’s door. But on thing was for sure: Hardy would get lied to, punched out, shot at, and merely ignored before he could give his clients satisfaction…
Make Me Rich Cliff Hardy is at the party to look after the paintings and throw out the drunks – gently.
But there he meets Helen Broadway, who interests him; and Paul Guthrie, who wants Hardy to look for his stepson, Ray.
Hardy delves into the sleazy Kings Cross backstreets and lowdown pubs, following a twisting path laid by a hitman, a criminal with heavy political protection, and a seedy alcoholic member of his own profession. There’s scarcely enough time for Helen Broadway, interesting though she still is.
Hardy pushes on to final confrontation. It’s rough: the guns are out, and the odds are no help…
The Big Drop: Cliff Hardy cases A client happens to fall from the twentieth story of a building; a rock star goes missing; an erotic Mongol scroll vanishes; a film star has a problem that has nothing to do with creativity – it’s all in a day’s work for Cliff Hardy.
Yachts dance on the sparkling waters of the harbour, and the back alleys are busy; the city’s high and low classes go about their daily business. But nothing really surprises Hardy; and, for a hundred and twenty-five a day (plus expenses), he’ll provide a few surprises of his own…
Deal Me Out Cliff Hardy starts out to help a friend but before long he’s looking for an enemy – William Mountain: a boozer, TV scriptwriter, would-be novelist who is missing and searching for adventure.
Mountain’s adventure is Hardy’s ‘case’ which rapidly becomes a case he would rather not have. Mountain is the dealer in a deadly game and the hands he deals become more and more bizarre…
The character of Cliff Hardy lives in the inner Sydney suburb of Glebe, and in the 1990’s I spent a couple of months living in the suburb (and a lot more working and hanging out in the area) so i recognise a lot of the places, cafes and bars that he talks about as places i used to frequent…which just adds a little something extra when i read the stories :)
I’ve been collecting the series since around 1993 and I’m close to having the entire set in my library. A few of my collection are signed by the author and most of them are mint condition 1st editions…hence the time it has taken to complete the set.
Once i get into a book collecting frenzy its far worse than a hat or vintage clothing frenzy…and it goes on for years until i usually have 1st edition mint copies or the next best thing :)
Anyway…if you haven’t read any of the Cliff hardy novels, do yourself a favour and go out a grab some…you won’t be disappointed.
So…here are the shots i remembered to take while enjoying the opportunity of spending a great day with a bunch of great people at the 1st Official Fedora Lounge Get-Together held in Sydney. It’s considered an “official get-together” because the guy who started the Fedora Lounge was part of the group.
At the ANZAC War Memorial
Left to Right – Benny Holiday, Zarniwoop, Fireman Sam, Drew B, MK and Cookie
At the ANZAC War Memorial
Left to Right – Benny Holiday, Zarniwoop, Fireman Sam, Drew B, MK and Cookie
At Manly Beach
Left to Right – Benny Holiday, Madame Circa, MK, Tim, Drew B and Cookie
At the Lord Nelson Hotel
Left to Right – Benny Holiday, Cookie, MK, Madame Circa, Tim, Drew B and hats.
At the Caminetto Italian Restaurant
Left to Right – Drew B, MK, Cookie, Madame Circa, Tim, Fireman Sam and Splatt (Note: The joys of having a good camera means that this is the only photo from my camera that contains me in it.)
At the Marble Bar
Left to Right – Fireman Sam, MissS, Tim, MK, Madame Circa, Cookie and Drew B
At the Marble Bar
Left to Right – Fireman Sam, MissS, Tim, MK, Madame Circa, Cookie and Drew B
It was a great day and i’m looking forward to the next one :)
When Emily Inglethorpe is found fatally poisoned, Captain Hastings, who is staying with the family, enlists the help of his old friend Hercule Poirot to solve this horrible murder. When the evidence points to a family member it is up to Poirot, to find out who the real murderer is.
The copy i grabbed of the shelf is a very early hardback edition and unfortunately i don’t have any images of it. I also have another hardback edition of this book which has been securely stored in a controlled environment vault since early 1994…but thats a story that usually involves a few drinks to get out of me ;)
Anyway…due to the “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” TV series being shown on the ABC TV network in Australia, i’m making a bit of effort to try and follow each episode shown on TV with the matching book. Since i missed the first few episodes i decided to play catch-up and try and read the first few book quite quickly.
I also finished re-reading another book i haven’t read in a while called, “Ligney’s Lake” by the Australian author S.H. Courtier.
A dead man alive at Melbourne’s Festival Hall…a merino-shaped lake…a stolen copy of Thoreau’s Walden…ASIO’s wall of silence…
Sandy Carmichael can pick up the pieces, but to fit the jigsaw together, he needs to risk his life.
It’s a great read and I definitely need to pick up a few more of Courtier’s books when i find them.
If you like the idea of re-living, or experiencing for the first time, train travel from a better era, Steamrail Victoria are providing a chartered return trip from Melbourne to Wycheproof called “Steaming Up Broadway” (pdf info available here).
It departs from Souther Cross Station in Melbourne at 10pm on Friday the 10th of October and arrives at Wycheproof at 10.30am on Saturday the 11th. IT then departs Wycheproof at 9.50am on Sunday the 12th and arrives at Southern Cross Station at around 8pm that night.
The Maritime Timetable Images website is a great collection of…maritime timetables, from a period in time when “the journey was more important than the destination”.
The huge collection, put together by Björn Larsson, covers a pretty wide era and starts around the late 1800’s.
Below are some of my favourites, but definitely go and visit the site to see a whole bunch more :)
While its not from the 1930’s or 1940’s, there is a brand of suit from Studio Italia, which goes under the moniker of the “Money Market Suit”, which almost plays the part of a golden era suit…and the limited edition (300 only) peak lapel suit with the Regal Lilac lining they announced, really does look quite nice.
In the last week i finished re-reading two books by one of my favourite authors, Eric Ambler.
One was first published in 1956 and is called “The Night-Comers” (also called “State of Siege”) and the other is “The Light of Day” that was first published in 1962.
The Night-Comers
All in all Steve Fraser had enjoyed his three-year stint in the former Dutch Southeast Asian colony of Sunda, and he’d been well compensated. But now he was looking forward to a last weekend in the capital before heading home.
But Sunda was newly independent, and not entirely stable. An opposition faction with fundamentalist Islamic leanings was set on overthrowing the provisonal government. And instead of enjoying a sybaritic weekend with the Eurasian beauty Rosalie, Fraser finds himself trapped with her by a fanatical group who’ve taken over the country’s radio station and made their headquarters in his friend Jebb’s apartment.
As the government launches a counterattack, the couple’s survival depends on their ability to dodge bullets and the shifting loyalties of the coup’s liuetenants.
The Light of Day
When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with city and in need of a private driver. In other words, the perfect mark for Simpson’s brand of entrepreneurship. But Harper proves to be more the spider than the fly when he catches Simpson riffling his wallet for traveler’s checks.
Soon Simpson finds himself blackmailed into driving a suspicious car across the Turkish border. Then, when he is caught again, this time by the police, he faces a choice: cooperate with the Turks and spy on his erstwhile colleagues or end up in one of Turkey’s notorious prisons.
The authorities suspect an attempted coup, but Harper and his gang of international jewel thieves have planned something both less sinister and much, much more audacious.
Note: The Light of Day was the basis for the 1964 Jules Dassin classic film, Topkapi (IMDB – wikipedia). You can watch the trailer to the movie below and over at this YouTube page.
If, like me, you are a fan of the hotel luggage labels that adorned peoples suit cases in a time when travel meant taking a journey and not just the quickest way to get from one place to another, then you will probably like this site i ran across recently that contains a pretty decent collection of those great labels.
The English content on the page has obviously been machine translated from Italian so it makes the reading a little bit amusing.
Here are a few of my favourites from the site that i would love to have on my luggage…my selection is not based on design…but on places that would have been amazing to visit in the era of luggage labels.
Note: If i could find a website for the hotel, i’ve added a link to its name.
It is also the only film adaption of a Christie novel to star Albert Finney as detective Hercule Poirot, with the role being played by Peter Ustinov in other films.
“Murder on the Orient Express” was the more successful of the two movies, bringing in $25 million in the US versus only $14.5 million for “Death on the Nile”. I’d have to agree with those figures as “Murder on the Orient Express” is definitely my favourite of the two…though they are both great films :)
The other week I finished re-reading a book I haven’t picked up in a few years….
Case Reopened
The Mean Streets team again! The Wanda Beach murders, the disappearance of Harold Holt, the Bogle-Chandler case, the missing proceeds from the Qantas Bomb Hoax, the mystery of the Beaumont children and the Shark Arm murder. These are just some of the real ‘cases’ investigated by the cream of Australian crime writers who were given the brief to take a famous Australian murder or mystery…and solve it!
Have they really stumbled onto new information…or are their speculations merely fiction?
Loading ...