Heroin Annie And Other Cliff Hardy Stories

Cliff Hardy #5

by Peter Corris

He's a one-man army for $125 a day, plus expenses, and Hardy was finding his fee harder to earn all the time.

From reformed junkies to high fashion models, from radical politics to corporate, every type of face with every type of problem eventually walked through Hardy's door. But on thing was for sure: Hardy would get lied to, punched out, shot at, and merely ignored before he could give his clients satisfaction...

Paperback original; 1st US edition. Detective fiction.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Peter Corris was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. His first novel was published in 1980. Corris is credited with reviving the fully-fledged Australian crime novel with local settings and reference points and with a series character firmly rooted in Australian culture, Sydney PI Cliff Hardy. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing".

He won the Lifetime Achievement award at the Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing in 1999 and was shortlisted for best novel in 2006 for Saving Billy and in 2007 for The Undertow.

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cliff Hardy is your typical down on his luck private eye; a broke womaniser who gets bopped on the head more often than is good for him and down those dangerous streets he must walk alone. Only in his case those dangerous streets are Sydney, in the early 1980s. Australia's very own Sam Spade created by Peter Corris is currently the star of a 37 book series.

These stories are from early in his career and work as a good introduction to the man and his method. I'd always figured they wouldn't be much to write home about, just another third rate hard boiled detective series that's only popular because he's a hometown hero for fellow Australians. I'm not a very optimistic guy when it comes to this type of thing.

It turns out that Peter Corris is largely credited as being single-handedly responsible for putting the hard boiled and the pulp back on Australian shores after many years of Australians pulling a James Hadley Chase and pretending they were in America, step forward Carter Brown as a prime example. This collection was me dipping my toes in to the water and I think I'm about ready to go for a longer frolic in future.

Cliff is everything you want in a gumshoe; resourceful, has a strong moral code and willing to put his body on the line. Corris has a way with words, establishing locale and setting the scene with a few well chosen descriptive passages and a few phrases peculiar to this country, his metaphors and similes are not spectacular but they work and they don't irritate like somebody who is forcing the issue without the talent. The only real problem is that these short stories are all very formulaic, I started off reminded of Ross MacDonald's early work and slowly came to realise that Cliff Hardy will get knocked out for no apparent reason about a third of the way through the story then arbitrarily follow the plot from A to B to Z making smart-aleck remarks and observations, kind of like those early Ross MacDonald books. These are copycat stories told with a Sydney flavour and I can respect that from a young author breaking new ground but I want more in future.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't read any Cliff Hardy, this is a good place to start. These are early career short stories that give you the gritty feel of Sydney and the ethic and methods of Australia's equivalent of Philip Marlowe. Sometimes more action than mystery, you may have to keep a slang dictionary handy to get all the references

[Damo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 5th Cliff Hardy book, Heroin Annie is actually a collection of short stories, each featuring the Sydney private investigator mixing it up with the rich, the escaped prisoners, the organised criminals and the murderous thugs. Like the novels, all the stories are hardboiled, straight to the point and solid as rocks, just like their protagonist. Peter Corris takes his detective through all kinds of hell and he seems to manage to come out the other side in reasonably good shape, apart from the odd scar or two.

Marriages Are Made In Heaven : The first story has a deeply ironic title, for it's in this story that we greet, and say goodbye to Cyn, Hardy's wife. She is referred to from time to time in the course of the many novels but it's here that the circumstances for her departure are laid out. As for the case, Hardy is hired to protect beautiful model, Selina Hope. Unknown to her, Selina is caught up in a blackmail sting, one that could cost her her life unless Hardy can find a way to save her.

Heroin Annie : The title story puts Hardy in the midst of a major drug deal after he is hired to seek out Annie, the daughter of a friend. Young Annie has fallen in with the wrong crowd and under the curse of heroin. Dealers, addicts and crooked cops make this a tense little story told in classic hardboiled style with a diabolically dangerous twist to the ending.

The Luck of Clem Carter : Cliff takes a trip north courtesy of Clem Carter, an escaped convict seeking to get some revenge for his prison stretch. Hardy's really only an observer in this one with Carter calling the shots in a whirlwind of action. This particular story forces Hardy to make some morally tough decisions and tends to typify his "take to bull by the horns" attitude.

Silverman : Hardy takes on the traditional hardboiled P.I. case, the missing person case. He stumbles onto a dodgy building development plot that manages to get him beaten up and knocked out before he gains a late upper hand.

Stockyards At Jerilderie : Cliff delves into the ambiguous art scene with original, reproduction and outright fake paintings lying at the centre of a murder and theft. This one seems fairly straight forward until right towards the end throwing in a nasty little surprise. This was one of the stronger stories of the collection.

Blood Is Thicker : An old New Zealand farmer has come looking for his son who has come to Australia to escape and has done too good a job. Now his father wants him to come back to take over the family farm. Cliff Hardy trails down the coast from Sydney to Wollongong and gets himself into a life-threatening situation with a trucking boss. Short, sweet and deadly, this one's dangerous with a clever twist that totally blindsided me.

Mother's Boy : Hoo boy, this one is a real doozy and left Cliff not knowing whether he was coming or going. Probably the best of all of the stories here. A son's concern that his mother is dating the wrong type of man gets way out of control when Cliff tails the love birds a little too closely.

Escort To An Easy Death : A rare opportunity to see Cliff in romantic mode, as brief as it is. Someone's out to kill Cliff Hardy and they're not too particular how they go about it. Incredibly, he survives some serious attempts to get rid of him before tracking down a likely suspect in a remote shack. All is not as it seems in this clever mystery, but the gun play is fast and furious.

California Dreamland : to round out the book, the final story takes Cliff out of Australia and across to America where he searches for a girl who has fled to San Francisco. Although he is supposed to be way out of his comfort zone, the highly adaptable PI manages to operate with amazing efficiency in the unfamiliar surroundings and is an appropriate way to end this snappy series of shorts.

During the course of the wide range of cases investigated in this volume, I would say at a conservative estimate that Cliff Hardy would have been knocked unconscious at least 10 times, but I've probably missed a time or two. To think of the brain damage that he sustained to bring us all of this action is just mind-blowing, literally, and just makes his performances in the 20-some novels that would follow this book even more impressive.

Cliff Hardy fans will enjoy these shorter examples of his dry wit, tough exterior and adaptability under extreme pressure. As a matter of fact, that's a little unfair, anyone who enjoys solid hardboiled detective stories will get a kick out of these stories and, I'm sure, will be searching around for more Cliff Hardy novels to enjoy.

[Sandy Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not normally a fan of short stories in crime fiction / authors generally try to pack too twists or surprises and it ends up being far-fetched. Not Peter Corris with this set; a variety of PI cases of enough interest but still able to be wrapped up in the shorter space allowed.

Also a wonderful window into the no-so-distant past, where Blackwattle Bay Glebe was still to be gentrified, where terraces at $3/4M in Paddington were sky-high prices and where people - Hardy at least - still drank hock! Who even knows what that is these days!

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy Cliff Hardy novels you’ll enjoy these short stories. Sometimes he wins, sometimes not, but it’s always entertaining.

[Glenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

As these are short stories it's hard to rate some better than others

[Mumbler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Giving it five stars... not one of the best books ever-ever, but I'm not gonna fret about the rating system too much.

And, as much as I love private eye stories in this (Chandler-follower) mode, and how well this book embodies the style, maybe I do want to make that big a deal of it. :)

[A.B. Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

My fourth Corris one - this is a collection of short stories, albeit still in the PI Cliff Hardy series. An enjoyable read, but it didn't do it for me as the two previous novels did.