Signal Loss

Signal Loss is the seventh book in the Inspector Challis series by award-winning Australian author, Garry Disher. Head of the Peninsula's Crime Investigation Unit, Detective Inspector Hall Challis has a bit on his mind: the spate of farm equipment thefts is puzzling; the ice-crime epidemic is worrying; and now the tinder-dry bushland has caught fire, leaving two unidentified bodies in a burnt-out Mercedes with stolen plates, and revealing an abandoned illicit drug lab.

On a routine follow-up to an assault complaint, Detective Constable Pam Murphy learns that the complainant appears to have done a runner; at the recently uncovered drug lab, the discovery of a child's clothing is disturbing; and when a shooting victim is found with some rather interesting sheds on his property, Pam's interview of the man who stumbled upon the body challenges her pre-conceived ideas.

Sergeant Ellen Destry, in charge of the Sex Crimes Unit, has her hands full too: as well as a masturbating flasher, a children's playground photographer, sexual assaults on trains, and the molestation of an exchange student, she now seems to have a serial rapist/burglar to track down. But her small team is dedicated, determined and, if nothing else, resourceful.

Disher gives the reader a tightly-plotted page-turner that is a joy to read from the opening sentence - "Lovelock and Pym. They sounded like some kind of show-business duo – magicians maybe; folk singers"- to the final full stop. The book is filled with superlative descriptive prose. This succinct example shows how easily Disher paints a graphic portrait: "Valentine snorted, a skinny, ice-ravaged creature dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Gummy eyes, when they finally opened. Three or four days' worth of whiskers, grubby feet with a yellow talon at the end of each toe" While a bad-boy cop can be fun, it is also refreshing to have a protagonist who is intelligent, responsible and reliable, a man whose principles and integrity extend into his personal life. Each of the main characters may have flaws but they are, nonetheless appealing; their teamwork and some satisfyingly good deductive police work gets the job done.

This may be a crime novel, but there is plenty of humour, much of it quite black. The banter between the characters is entertaining, and there are, perhaps unexpectedly, plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as well as a good dose or two of irony.

This series is published under the Peninsula Crimes banner, which makes sense, as they are set in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Locals must surely delight in reading about their area, and Disher's descriptions are, naturally, well-informed: after all, he does live there.

While this is the seventh book in the series, it can easily be read as a stand-alone, although that's unlikely to happen: readers new to the series will be unable to resist seeking out the earlier books; fans of Disher's work will not be disappointed. Clever and topical, this is Aussie crime fiction at its best.