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Australian author Garry Disher is certainly prolific. He has over forty books to his credit, five of them in a procedural series nominally starring Hal Challis, but populated with a team of officers who all play important roles. For those familiar with the series, the characters will be old friends; for those who aren't, BLOOD MOON offers ample opportunities to get acquainted without feeling lost. In this series set on the Mornington Peninsula, a hook of land reaching into the sea south-east of Melbourne, the police keep order in a part of the country that is a scenic tourist destination, its small towns and beaches a rural escape from the nearby metropolis. But it's no sanctuary from crime. When the moon is not only full, but a "blood moon" tinted by astronomical events, the "schoolies" – students enjoying an Australian version of spring break mayhem – are likely to act even more lunatic than usual. Hal Challis and his team have several things on their blotter: a school chaplain has been badly injured in a brutal assault; his brother is a political operative who's given to spouting racist opinions online, a historic home has been bulldozed by a developer as a protection order is sought, a young local resident seeks to humiliate a schoolie who raped her, hoping to dash his hopes of scoring again, and a woman is being stalked by her abusive and controlling husband. But it's not all work and no personal drama. Hal and Ellen Destry are trying out living together and finding it fraught with difficulty. John Tankard is battling a streak of jealousy as his old partner Pam Murphy is taken with a brash new officer. And Scobie Sutton's wife has joined a fundamentalist church and lost all sense of reality. Disher has the skill to pull all of this off, keeping the investigations clear and compelling, neatly juggling perspectives of civilians and cops involved, carrying it off with straightforward, deceptively simply prose. Those who enjoy a touch of romance with their mysteries may be disappointed; these relationships are tart, served without sugar. And while the stories are absorbing, the reader never feels as if they've boarded a suspense thrill ride designed for maximum acceleration. As Challis says at a startling moment that many writers would milk for its dramatic potential, "this isn't television." It's a sweet moment of common sense triumphing over our collective adrenaline addiction. It's not surprising that a previous book in this series was awarded the Ned Kelly prize for crime fiction. Disher has mastered the art of the ensemble procedural, and BLOOD MOON is an enjoyable, absorbing entry in a series that brings honor to the reviewer's overused and sometimes backhanded adjective "solid." § Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.
Reviewed by Barbara Fister, August 2010
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