Peter Robert Corris (1942-2018) was an Australian academic, historian, journalist, and novelist. He received a Ph.D. in history from the Australian National University and then became a lecturer, literary editor of the National Times, and wrote multiple historical nonfiction books while writing fiction. He was nominated repeatedly for a Ned Kelly award and won the Best Fiction award in 2009. He received the Ned Kelly award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999.
His extensive bibliography includes books about Luke Dunlop, who works in witness protection; Richard Browning, a private investigator in Sydney with links to Hollywood; Ray Crawley, Federal Security Agency director in Sydney; and Cliff Hardy, a Sydney private investigator. Hardy is the longest-lived of the Corris characters with 42 books published between 1980 and 2017.
The fourth in the series is The Empty Beach (Allen & Unwin, 1983). Marion Singer’s husband John disappeared two years ago. He was last seen on the beach near Bondi. He was known to sail close to the wind financially and was likely mixed up in some illicit activities. The authorities couldn’t decide between suicide and murder, even though his body was never found.
Marion says an anonymous someone called her a week ago to say he saw John on the street and he looked ill. She wants Hardy to look for him. Hardy gets stronger pushback to his questions than he expected, and another couple of murders take place as a result. Clearly someone does not want to learn that John Singer is alive after all.
As a result of his inquiry, Hardy gets kidnapped a couple of times and worked over by assorted goons. He is one of those private investigators who can get the stuffing beat out of him one day and he’s ready for another stomping two days later.
A crisply told PI tale, less than 200 pages, with some period detail about Bondi, an eastern suburb of Sydney, which is now broken out into Bondi Beach, Bondi Junction, and North Bondi, in addition to Bondi proper.
The novel was adapted for a feature film of the same name in 1985. The film starred Bryan Brown as Cliff Hardy, along with Anna Maria Monticelli and Belinda Giblin. The film was directed by Chris Thomson from a screenplay by Keith Dewhurst.
Fans of Spenser, Elvis Cole, Easy Rawlins, and Mike Hammer, or private eye tales in general, will want to look this series up. Fortunately the books are mostly easy to find in the secondary market with reasonable prices.