Deal Me Out by Peter Corris

Publisher's Synopsis

Cliff Hardy starts out to help a friend but before long he's looking for an enemy - William Mountain: 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...

My Review 

Detective stories, by and large, follow a fairly predictable formula that goes through a slow process of interviews mixed with the occasional touch of violence, maybe even some gunplay before racing off to a showdown type of ending. Deal Me Out by Peter Corris looks as though this formula will be adhered to for the first 30 pages or so before it swings carelessly into a fabulously off-beat hunt that throbs with desperation as the surroundings grow more tawdry. This is the 8th book in the Cliff Hardy series and it's the kind of raging pot-boiler that has made the series Australia's most popular.

Cliff Hardy is hired by his old friend Terry Reeves to investigate a gang of car thieves who have hit his business 6 times in a well-orchestrated scam. Reeves owns a car-hire firm and has hired out 6 cars to people who have supplied false names and addresses, paid with fake cheques and have taken off with his cars.

Fortunately for Hardy and for Reeves, the surveillance photos that captured the last thief arrived while Cliff was still in the office and he recognised the man as Bill Mountain. This is a little perplexing for Hardy because, although he never really got on with Mountain in the past, the man was a television scriptwriter, not a crook. What was this man doing mixed up with a highly organised crime syndicate?

The first move Hardy makes is to visit Mountain at his home, thinking that he would provide an easy link to the entire operation and would at least be a good chance to get a car or two back for his friend. But nothing's ever that easy. Mountain's not at home. Not to be deterred, hardy decides to do a spot of breaking and entering hoping to get some sort of clue as to who is behind the car racket. Instead, he is confronted by Mountain's girlfriend, Erica Fong and after a brief and fiery "get to know you" decide that they would join forces to look for the missing writer.

Through a series of good detective work, good luck and bad luck, Hardy works out that Mountain has not only disappeared with the car that he stole, but also with tapes - both video and audio - that could prove very incriminating for the people who employed him. He's a wanted man with a limited life expectancy. Hardy is coerced into helping the organisation find him giving him significant incentive to get the job done in a timely manner. It soon becomes the kind of case that Hardy would prefer to have absolutely nothing to do with.

Right from the start Hardy's investigation moves along nicely as he wastes no time immersing himself in his investigation. After meeting and allowing Erica Fong to join him, the pace quickly builds as they find that they have formed an unusual partnership that pays rich dividends. The secret behind the success of their partnership is the combination of Hardy's ordered professionalism offset by the recklessness of a woman trying to find her boyfriend. The result is a series of very entertaining exchanges between the two as well as a growing friendship and trust.

I found this to be one of the most compelling Cliff Hardy books I have read with Hardy's desperation to reach Bill Mountain an almost physical thing by the end of the story. The use of a novel's working synopsis written by Mountain and sent to his agent is a clever way to string the story along and effectively builds up the expectations for a dramatic conclusion. I don't normally glow about the endings of novels, but I'll make an exception this time because I thought Corris excelled himself for its unexpectedness, both for the predicament Hardy finds himself in and the surreal nature of the entire scene.

For dedicated fans of the series, there are a couple of noteworthy updates on the regular characters that take place in the course of the book. Detective Frank Parker and Cliff's room-mate, Hilda, have now moved in together and Hilda is pregnant, while Helen Broadway, Cliff's part-time love has left Sydney for 6 months as per the terms of their most unorthodox relationship. And, yes, the running cameo of Primo Tomasetti is continued in this book with Hardy's office located in the rooms above his tattoo parlour.

Deal Me Out is one of the more intriguing Cliff Hardy detective novels I have read taking us on a sordid journey into a drug infused bedlam. The use of a writer's novel synopsis to provide a solid guide as to the direction the investigation should take is inspired and the ending is simply phenomenal. All fans of good hardboiled detective novels will revel in this hectic outing.