‘The godfather of Australian crime fiction.’

Cliff Hardy starts out to help a friend but before long he’s looking for an enemy - William Mountain: boozer, TV scriptwriter, would-be novelist who is missing and searching for adventure. Mountain’s adventure is Hardy’s ‘case’ which rapidly becomes a case he would rather not have. Mountain is the dealer in a deadly game and the hands he deals become more and more bizarre.

‘Indigenous thrillers are better than any others, and the best of all are Peter Corris’ accounts of his Sydney private detective, Cliff Hardy. Corris’ story is clever, his asides wry, his language rough but whimsical.‘ - Mark Thomas, Canberra Times

’.Of Peter Corris it can be said “One sentence and the reader is away.”‘ - Manning Clark, The National Times

'Cliff Hardy is. as Australian as two-up and Fosters.’ - The Australian