Chain of Evidence (Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry Investigation) [Hardcover]

Garry Disher (Author)

Book Description

Series: Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry Investigation | Publication Date: July 1, 2007

Praise for the Hal Challis series:

“Garry Disher is an old favorite of mine, and it’s about time American readers got a shot at him.”—Scott Phillips, author of Cottonwood and The Ice Harvest

“A first-rate Australian author.”—The New York Times Book Review

Inspector Hal Challis has been summoned to Mawson’s Bluff, his childhood home in the Australian Outback, where his father is dying. Sergeant Ellen Destry is left to head an investigation into a ring of pedophiles that has descended on the peaceful Mornington Peninsula, a resort community near Melbourne. A little girl has been abducted from the fairgrounds at the annual Waterloo Show; it takes her mother twenty-four hours to report her missing. By then, hope is slim that the police will find the child before it is too late.

Challis’ sister’s difficult husband disappeared from the Bluff four years ago; since then Meg has received nuisance mail that she assumes comes from him. While Challis is in town, an extra buried body is discovered when a new grave is dug in the local graveyard. A black plastic bag containing the corpse of Meg’s husband is found on top of a coffin that was interred four years earlier.

With two very different crimes to solve, Challis and Destry have their work cut out for them.

Garry Disher is the author of more than forty books for children and adults. Two of his mysteries have won the German Crime Fiction Critics Prize. He lives near Melbourne in Australia.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Australian Disher's fine fourth novel to feature Insp. Hal Challis, head of Peninsula East's Crime Investigation Unit in Waterloo, Queensland (after 2005's Snapshot), opens with the kidnapping of 10-year-old Katie Blasko. In Challis's absence, Sgt. Ellen Destry leads the investigation while her boss visits his dying father in the South Australia sheep-farming village he came from (and does some unofficial sleuthing on the mysterious disappearance of his brother-in-law five years earlier). When the girl is discovered, viciously abused, Destry's supervisors are a bit too eager to close the case as the inquiry widens into something much larger. Disher deftly weaves in layers of complexity, particularly the resentful antagonism that separates Waterloo's lower-middle-class families from the town's power structure. A compelling mix of procedural detail and action round out a fully credible plot and characters. Though some of the multitudinous subplots dilute the novel's overall impact, it's nonetheless a deeply satisfying read. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Australian crime fiction flies below the radar of most American fans, but Disher and compatriot Peter Temple are making the case that they deserve to be as well known as Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin. Despite broadening his Inspector Hal Challis series to include Sergeant Ellen Destry, Disher keeps the partners apart for the entire book, each of them solving crimes that share odd resonances. Challis has gone to Mawson's Bluff, his dusty hometown deep in the "never-never," to attend his father's imminent death. Destry, homeless following her sundered marriage, is house-sitting for Challis in lush Waterloo, near Melbourne, and filling in for him at work, too. She is tested by a horrific child abduction, departmental politics, and rogue cops--while he finds himself facing personal history and investigating the long-ago disappearance of his unlikable brother-in-law. There's strong sexual tension between Challis and Destry, despite the fact that they communicate only by phone. This is a procedural, with careful, realistic casework, but the character development suggests Peter Robinson, with enough darkness and ambiguity to suit fans of Rankin, and a kind of which-way-is-up sense of the police force that recalls early James Ellroy. Moody, inventive, and extremely hard to put down. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Soho Crime (July 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569474613
• ISBN-13: 978-1569474617
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,222,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garry Disher lives in Australia and is the author of over 40 books: novels, short story collections, writers' handbooks, history textbooks and children's fiction. His Challis and Destry police procedurals, and his Wyatt crime from the inside thrillers, are gaining international recognition, winning best crime novel of the year awards in Australia and Germany and appearing on best books of the year lists in the USA. Garry has toured Germany twice and the States once, and counts a scholarship year spent in the Stanford University creative writing school, early in his career, as one of his most important formative experiences.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pedophiles who make fools of mothers and victims of their daughters..., January 24, 2009

By 

Laurie Fletcher "Laurie Fletcher" (Casper, Wyoming, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chain of Evidence (Paperback)

Dang it! Disher's at it again. I really like his writing and especially like the setting of his stories in peninsular Victoria, Australia. But the man doesn't seem to have met a story line that he didn't want to include in his novels. His last book, "Snapshot" wasn't as busy and it was much better for the manageable number of subplots and crossplots.

This time, Inspector Hal Challis is called away to his childhood home, Mawson's Bluff, in the Outback of S.E. Australia. His father is dying and there are relationships to resolve and ghosts to chase. Challis's interactions with his sister and father are lovely pieces of this book. The mystery to be solved in Mawson's Bluff is a bit of a clunker but it isn't awful.

Meanwhile, Sergeanty Ellen Destry has been put in charge of Challis's Crime Investigation Unit and is staying at his house in his absence. She's left her marriage and is unsure about a budding romance with Challis. (Just the usual complications at the office.) Because Challis is gone, Ellen must pull together the team to investigate an awful crime - the abduction of a child by a pedophile with a clever system that makes fools of mothers and victims of daughters. This is a tough storyline and flinchingly close to today's headlines. But it is well-written and tells a necessary story about how fiends acquire and exploit children.

I've been a pretty faithful Disher reader since "Dragon Man" and I see no reason to stop - I just wish he'd flesh out his good main stories and give a few of the side stories a rest, even if it means we don't get such detailed insight into the lives of our complex police unit.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His best yet, May 21, 2009

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Scott (Chatsworth, CA, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chain of Evidence (Paperback)

I've liked Disher's writing since first reading "The Dragon Man." For me, this was his best since that debut. "Kittyhawk Down" and "Snapshot" were both very good, but not quite as good as "Dragon" or this one. Excellent character development, especially with Ellen Destry, very well plotted and a good sense of setting. And I have to disagree with another reviewer about too many subplots. Can't wait to read his next one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars engaging investigative thriller, July 3, 2008

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chain of Evidence (Paperback)

In Australia Police Inspector Hal Challis returns home to Mawson's Bluff in the Australian Outback, as his father is dying. Sergeant Ellen Destry takes over running the Peninsula East's Crime Investigation Unit in Waterloo, Queensland temporarily. At the annual Waterloo Show, ten years old Katie Blasko vanishes; shockingly her mother waits twenty-four hours before reporting her missing to the cops, who know how critical the first few hours are in terms of retrieval. To her shock her superiors want her to close the case though she fears a pedophile ring may be operating in the peninsular.

Meanwhile in Mawson's Bluff, a corpse is found inside a plastic bag lying on top of a coffin buried four years ago. Inside is Challis' odious brother-n-law who vanished at the same time the coffin was interred. Challis' sister Meg assumed he was alive as she has been receiving junk mail that she thought came from him since he left her. He unofficially investigates.

There are obviously two major subplots; both are well written and could stand alone as investigative tales. However, rotating back and forth subtracts from the overall impact of each in spite two well written multilayered story lines that come across as rotating novellas. Still Gary Disher provides his audience with an engaging Australian police procedural as Challis is out of town conducting an unsanctioned private investigation re his family while Destry works a police procedural inquiry into a kidnapped child. Putting Destry in charge of dealing with media, the brass, and politicians refreshes this excellent series.

Harriet Klausner