DAY’S END by Garry Disher (Text, $38)
ornington Peninsula author Garry Disher has been consistently writing excellent crime fiction for decades and continues to raise his own very high bar. Lately, the “quiet king of Aussie crime” – who received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 – has enthralled readers and added, the fourth Hirsch novel, international backpacker Willi van Sant has gone missing while the borders were closed due to Covid-19. Now, Willi’s mother, Janne, is in town searching. There’s a roadside fire, a body in a suitcase. Meanwhile, Hirsch is juggling crimes ranging from unlicensed drivers to cases involving extremism, drugs and conspiracy theories. To hardly mention life with his girlfriend Wendy and her daughter Kate. Disher once again masterfully soaks readers in the milieu of rural Australia, delivering a riveting crime tale centred on a likeable hero, threaded with relevant issues. A standard-bearer of antipodean crime.
