That Empty Feeling

Ned Kelly Award–winner Corris’s 41st book featuring Australian PI Cliff Hardy (after 2015’s Gun Control) doesn’t pull its punches. The death of former client Barry Bartlett prompts Hardy to reminisce to his grown daughter, Megan, about his work for Barry some years earlier. In a flashback, Barry, a crooked Sydney businessman who has somehow managed to stay out of prison for more than 25 years, is visited by a young man claiming to be the son, Ronald, whom he hasn’t seen for decades. As Ronald has no proof to back up his claim, Barry, a lonely man who’s eager to believe him, asks Hardy to investigate. Before the detective can get much traction on the assignment, Ronald disappears, Barry suffers a stroke, and the case eventually turns into a murder inquiry with broad implications. Hardy doesn’t shy away from using violence, and Corris doesn’t hesitate to present the consequences of that proclivity. The author’s effective humanizing of his sometimes-brutish lead makes Hardy a believable character who engages the reader’s sympathies. (Nov.)