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Peter Corris is an amazing man. Diagnosed as a Type One diabetic in his teens he set about attempting to shorten his life in every way possible - though perhaps not with that in mind. No doubt the reader will be heartened to hear that Corris more or less abandoned his excesses a couple of decades ago. Despite his disability he completed his tertiary studies by gaining a doctorate in History. He worked as an academic until he decided journalism would be a better career for him. Eventually he deserted that vocation as well, preferring to devote himself full-time to writing. Corris is exceedingly prolific as a writer. He has produced crime fiction, biography (or autobiography when one considers he co-wrote Fred Hollows' autobiography) and other non-fiction work. Corris' book Sweet & Sour - A Diabetic Life should be required reading for any newly diagnosed diabetic. Others of this author's titles include two series, one including this current novel featuring Sydney PI Cliff Hardy, and another starring Ray Crawley, a director of the fictional Federal Security Agency. Some of Corris' many titles are : Set Up , Cross Off ,Get Even ,The Dying Trade , White Meat, The Marvellous Boy ,The Empty Beach (re-released to coincide with the publication of Master's Mates )Heroin Annie, Make Me Rich The Big Drop , Deal Me Out, The Greenwich Apartments, Pokerface The Baltic Business The Kimberly Killing ,The Cargo Club, The Azanian Action and Lugarno. Interestingly, Corris initially forced Cliff Hardy to endure the pleasures of Type One diabetes. Poor Cliff had to do battle with a hypo as well as various baddies in an early novel, Cross Off. Since then Cliff has, miraculously, shed the condition. I noticed that he now takes sugar in his coffee. Would that all diabetics were able to find such spontaneous cures! Master's Mates is, typically, another hard-boiled romp for near alcoholic, tough and battered Hardy. In this twenty-sixth outing (and counting) Cliff is approached by the wife of an imprisoned crook, Stewart Masters, in an attempt to prove the drugs charge on which he has been gaoled. was trumped up. Master's wife, Lorraine, knows how Stewart despises drugs and the trafficking therein. It would be impossible for him, despite being no angel, to have endangered his happy home life with her and their children for a quick deal. Since Lorraine is a well heeled professional woman, what would be the necessity? Hardy has speaks with Stewart Masters in the gaol but, surprisingly, meets with no cooperation whatsoever. Cliff then takes an all expenses paid trip to New Caledonia where he tracks down Stewart's mates and attempts to solve the wherefores of the case. He falls foul of an intruder before he leaves Sydney on his quest and when he is in Noumea discovers he is in indeed grave danger - as are Master's mates. One danger which the PI did not encounter, to my astonishment was security at Sydney Airport. Somehow he boarded his plane while carrying a Swiss Army knife in his cabin luggage. I found that feat perhaps more amazing than all the other achievements of the story. This latest Hardy adventure will in no wise diminish Corris' reputation as a writer of the hard-boiled sub-genre. Cliff is his usual, hard-drinking, hard-fighting self. Given Hardy's track record with women - at one stage he muses about his past loves, all now dead - it is perhaps fortunate he conquers no female hearts in this outing. He and his allies, however, as well as his enemies, find themselves liable to threats of death as well as actual death. The story is so encumbered with corpses that one expects innocent bystanders in the street to stumble over them. Don't look for deep characterisation in these tales but for rollicking, old-fashioned, hard-slugging adventure, Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy is your man. Note: As of the date of this review, MASTER'S MATES is only available in Australia and New Zealand. All others, request your local independent bookstore to order it for you.
Reviewed by Denise Wels, August 2003
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