The Fallout by Garry Disher

Publisher's Synopsis

The Fallout is Wyatt's sixth job, and it takes off where Port Vila Blues left him. On a boat with policewoman Liz Redding, and a fortune in stolen gems. He escapes, triggering a manhunt, but who exactly is hunting him?

While others search for sunken treasure in Bass Strait and a stone-cold killer is sprung from gaol, Wyatt joins forces with his nephew to pull one of his trickiest robberies. In doing so he faces his most dangerous task yet - plumbing the depths within himself - and it may well prove fatal.

My Review 

Once again, the events of The Fallout follow hard on the heels from the point where the previous book, Port Vila Blues, left off. Wyatt and Sergeant Liz Redding were sailing back to Australia from Vanuatu taking a crooked judge and a fortune in stolen jewellery along with them. True to form, Wyatt turns the tables on Redding, leaving her unconscious on the boat while he prepares to sell the jewels upon his arrival in Melbourne.

Right from the start, though, things don't go as planned with a police tip-off very nearly catching him with his guard down. As is his custom when things go wrong, Wyatt simply walks away from the job no matter how profitable it may seem and this is exactly what he does now, going to ground until the heat cools down again. What's not his custom while bunkered down is to take stock of his life and consider whether it's all worthwhile. Wyatt is starting to feel his age, there is no doubt.

Also during this cooling period we meet young Ray Wyatt, as cool a customer as you're ever likely to meet and the nephew of Wyatt. Ray has been busy making a name for himself, albeit not his real name, as the "Bush Bandit", robbing banks around the rural regions of Victoria. Witnesses to his crimes were all struck by the calmness and non-threatening nature of the thief who spoke in quiet tones before calmly walking out of the bank with his stolen loot. It obviously runs in the genes.

Ray uses his stolen cash to play the part of a high-roller at Melbourne's casino, splashing out and enjoying the attention bestowed on the unconcerned wealthy. It's here that he meets a couple who have a business proposition for him. They have the opportunity of recovering sunken treasure found in a wreck off the Victorian coast, but they need investors to help fund the salvage operation. $50,000 would get Ray a stake in the operation with a pay-off figure in the millions. All Ray has to do is raise the cash.

It's while Ray Wyatt is looking for a prospective partner to pull off an art heist in his bid to raise the required treasure hunt funds that he happens to run into his uncle. Talk about coincidence and just the person for such a job. Wyatt agrees to help out and is thrust into the role of father-figure, a position that he is uncomfortable with and profoundly ill-equipped to handle. Surely trouble lies ahead.

The aspect of this series that I found appealing was the whole process of setting up and then carrying out a big score. The planning, the contingencies and then the execution carried a brewing sense of expectation as you read on to see whether the careful planning would pay off. All of this is missing in The Fallout and it felt flat as a result. Considerable time is given to the interaction between Wyatt and his nephew, but then, Wyatt has always been a man who was unable or unwilling to engage in meaningful conversation of any sort and he is also a man who is extremely short on empathy for others, so there's not a lot to take away on this front either. Wyatt is a man of action, but the action is sadly thin on the ground here.

On the whole, Gary Disher scarcely wastes a word as he fits in a diverse series of plotlines. This is just as well because, unfortunately, I didn't find them terribly compelling and in fact, picked quite early the way the entire story was going to pan out.

There is a tired quality to the tone of the book, matching the weariness that had overcome Wyatt. The ultimate professional criminal of the earlier books seems to have started questioning the lifestyle that he used to take for granted. He has finally realized that it's no longer particularly enjoyable to always have to be vigilant and aware of every single person around you. For the first time he appears vulnerable.

This vulnerability has resulted in the weakest book in the Wyatt series and it's not particularly surprising that there was a sizable interval between this book and the next, even though the ending is left wide open for a follow up book. I would only recommend The Fallout to people who have read and enjoyed the earlier books in the Wyatt series.