The January Zone by Peter Corris

Publisher's Synopsis

Politician Peter January is having trouble staying alive so he hires Cliff Hardy to help him. Hardy dislikes the role of politician's 'security consultant' but the dislikes bombers, hitmen and hate-mailers even more.

Protecting January leads to protecting his assistant, Trudi Bell, which is a more enjoyable assignment. It also takes Hardy to Washington DC where the threats are real and the rules are different.

To stand close to January is to stand close to danger and corruption, but there are even greater evils and Hardy cannot back away...

My Review 

Peter January is a politician with an outspoken agenda. He's anti-war, lobbying for complete disarmament around the world. He holds a view that is difficult to sell and displays a public persona that many people would dislike. But he believes in what he speaks about and is blessed with a sharp mind and acid tongue and has a certain charismatic appeal. He has just been accepted to speak before the Senate in Washington and has asked Cliff to accompany his entourage to head January's personal security for the trip.

Spending time with a politician of any description is not Cliff Hardy's most desirable occupation and when it's one with a big target on his back, he's even more reluctant. As he tries to explain, he's not a security consultant, but seeing as the money is right and with the motivation of tracking down the person who put him in the way of a bomb, Hardy takes the assignment.

His job is made a little more pleasant by the presence of January's personal assistant, Trudi Bell with whom he develops a growing admiration, one that is eventually returned. Together they form a comfortable team and a friendship that grows strongly on mutual trust. It's quite a rare circumstance to find Hardy in and was intriguing to watch how it developed.

Much of the story consists of Hardy and the people he is working with coming under constant unexpected attacks from all directions. Whether it's from a car, sniper or bomb, Hardy rides his luck and demonstrates his desperate resourcefulness to its fullest extent.

This is a frantic story prefaced by the bombing of Peter January's office and then is followed by all manner of attacks. As far as excitement goes there's an endless supply of it, ensuring an engrossing story that simply flies by.

The only problem is that while it's a story that's long on demonstration, it's very short on explanation and by the end of the book there are quite a few scenes that still remain up in the air without any sign of an explanation behind why they took place. Shootings, beatings, bombings all come and go with dizzying rapidity yet we are given no definitive reason as to their purpose. A little more time spent explaining the significance of January's opposition would have given these scenes much greater relevance and the book would have felt more complete.

The terse writing style of Peter Corris is in evidence here again demonstrated most obviously through the clipped dialogue of Hardy. Competing and starkly contrasting against this is the voluble January given the silken tongue of a politician and a willingness to demonstrate it at every opportunity. This is a measured, well-organised story that gets immediately down to business and is then carried forward in a quick and well-organised manner.

The unusual arrangement that Cliff and Helen Broadway have made to conduct a relationship in which she spends 6 months with Cliff in Sydney and 6 months with her husband in Kempsey continues in this book. It so happens that she's into her Kempsey stage for the duration of the book and there are signs that the arrangement is beginning to lose favour on Cliff's part.

The January Zone takes Cliff Hardy out of the familiar surroundings of Sydney and asks him to perform on foreign soil, a task he seems to handle well and, along the way, it looks as though he has made some friends with people who could return in future books.

I wouldn't call The January Zone a typical Cliff Hardy novel with both the type of work he does and the setting in which he does it varying from the norm. However, it's still an accomplished hardboiled novel featuring the Sydney PI who is becoming increasingly well developed as the series progresses. This is another fine Australian detective mystery to be enjoyed.