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Whispering Death
Published 23 May 2012
ISBN 9781921922510
Format Paperback
Extent 336pp
AU Price $23.95
NZ Price $30.00
Categories:

Whispering Death

Formats & editions
Paperback
23 May 2012
EBook
23 May 2012
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In his sixth Peninsula murder mystery, Garry Disher keeps the tension and intrigue ramped up exquisitely on multiple fronts, while he takes his regular characters in compelling new directions.

Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: carpeted by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour.

But there's plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis's Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that's a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis's patch.

Meanwhile, at the Waterloo Police Station, Challis finds his offsiders have their own issues. Scobie Sutton, still struggling with his wife's depression, seems to be headed for a career crisis; and something very interesting is going on between Constable Pam Murphy and Jeanne Schiff, the feisty young sergeant on secondment from the Sex Crimes Unit.

Disher is a grand master of the police procedural, operating at the peak of his craft.

‘With so many exhibitionist forensic experts showing off their extraordinary skills, it's a rare pleasure to sit down to a traditional detective story in which solid police work solves a crime. Inspector Hal Challis is very much in charge of the operations in an excellent Australian series written by Garry Disher...There are no shootouts here. Just the drama of people from very different social classes locked in battle over the schools, the services, the beaches, the views – and a way of life that has already gone behind a cloud.’ New York Times

‘DI Challis and his sergeant Ellen Destry...are both deftly, yet complexly drawn characters: two of the best in the genre and Disher easily one of the best writers.’ Weekend Herald

‘Disher is a fine writer about place and also people. Challis, in all his testiness and kindness, is a carefully crafted senior policeman...As in all the best police series, there's continuity and change...Go Garry, Go!’ Sue Turnbull, Age/Sydney Morning Herald

‘In all, this is a world-class police novel and Disher continues to be one of our best and most consistent crime novelists. Highly Recommended.’ Canberra Times

‘This is classic Disher, the taut writing bringing a complex plot into as sharp relief as the vivid settings and dread-laden atmosphere do the fully rounded characters.’ West Australian

‘Disher works like a biographer, calmly attempting to assemble order in his characters' chaotic lives. Disher cares about their interlinked worlds as much as he does about labyrinth plots, fetishised violence and the showy brainwork of his coppers. As always this grand master propels us methodically yet elegiacally. But he doesn't just provide classy entertainment. His fiction is a kind of social barometer of prevailing tensions in the community, especially in the outlying badlands of Australia's provincial coastal towns.’ Weekend Australian
Published 23 May 2012
ISBN 9781921922510
Format Paperback
Extent 336pp
AU Price $23.95
NZ Price $30.00
Categories:

Praise for Whispering Death

'DI Challis and his sergeant Ellen Destry...are both deftly, yet complexly drawn characters: two of the best in the genre and Disher easily one of the best writers.' Weekend Herald

PRH, PRH

'With so many exhibitionist forensic experts showing off their extraordinary skills, it's a rare pleasure to sit down to a traditional detective story in which solid police work solves a crime. Inspector Hal Challis is very much in charge of the operations in an excellent Australian series written by Garry Disher...There are no shootouts here. Just the drama of people from very different social classes locked in battle over the schools, the services, the beaches, the views–and a way of life that has already gone behind a cloud.' New York Times

PRH, PRH

'You'll enjoy the journey and an ending that's far more believable than so many modern murder mysteries.' Herald Sun

PRH, PRH

'Disher is a fine writer about place and also people. Challis, in all his testiness and kindness, is a carefully crafted senior policeman...As in all the best police series, there's continuity and change...Go Garry, Go!' Sue Turnbull, Age, Sydney Morning Herald

PRH, PRH

'Disher's sixth Challis murder-mystery emerges as a beguiling, multi-faceted tale.' Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin

PRH, PRH

'There is no shortage of blood, but Disher has a light touch that adds wry amusement to the predicaments his characters create for themselves. Disher proves you don't have to be a tourist to enjoy the delights of the peninsula.' Otago Daily Times

PRH, PRH

'In all, this is a world-class police novel and Disher continues to be one of our best and most consistent crime novelists. Highly Recommended.' Canberra Times

PRH, PRH

'Disher's layered plotlines, peppered with familiar Mornington Peninsula references, make this an engaging yet unsettling read.' Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald Sun

PRH, PRH

'This is classic Disher, the taut writing bringing a complex plot into as sharp relief as the vivid settings and dread-laden atmosphere do the fully rounded characters.' West Australian

PRH, PRH

'This very fine novel submits to the thriller conventions but with an easy freedom that makes it seem as if Disher made the rules himself...A compulsive and unsettling novel that should win Disher many new readers.' Sunday Age

PRH, PRH

'Disher works like a biographer, calmly attempting to assemble order in his characters' chaotic lives. Disher cares about their interlinked worlds as much as he does about labyrinth plots, fetishised violence and the showy brainwork of his coppers. As always this grand master propels us methodically yet elegiacally. But he doesn't just provide classy entertainment. His fiction is a kind of social barometer of prevailing tensions in the community, especially in the outlying badlands of Australia's provincial coastal towns.' Weekend Australian

PRH, PRH

'Now he's back with the sixth book of a first-rate police procedural series featuring the perennially tired DI Hal Challis and his feisty offsider Sergeant Ellen Destry...Whispering Death is the most complex and intriguing book of the lot and close to the best thing Disher's yet written.' Hobart Mercury

PRH, PRH

'The sixth in the Challis and Destry series is unmissable. If you haven't heard of them, reading this will have you backtracking.' Sunday Examiner

PRH, PRH

About the author

Garry Disher

Garry Disher has published sixty titles across multiple genres. With a growing international reputation for his best-selling crime novels, he has won four German and three Australian awards for best crime novel of the year, and been longlisted twice for a British CWA Dagger award. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.
portrait photo of Garry Disher

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