AustLit

'Last year in New York, I visited the Mysterious Bookshop, Manhattan’s only bookstore specialising in crime fiction. The otherwise knowledgeable bookseller had heard of three Australian crime novelists: Peter Temple, Garry Disher, and Jane Harper.

'If I were to visit this year, however, I’m pretty sure the bookseller would be able to add more Australian novelists to his list – the multi-award-winning author Emma Viskic for one, along with Dervla McTiernan and Candice Fox. Fox has become an internationally bestselling author, a success amplified by her four parallel collaborations with James Patterson, one of which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. McTiernan’s 2018 début, The Ruin, was both a critical and commercial success in Australia and overseas, garnering praise from fellow writers, critics, and fans alike for the Ireland-set novel’s clear-eyed style and deep characterisation.' (Introduction)

'Look up “hard-boiled” in the dictionary and you may well see a photo of everyone’s favourite master thief: Wyatt, Garry Disher’s taut, repressed old-style villain. Except, of course, that no clear photo of Wyatt exists. He has no Christian name. He’s a phantom, a loner, a man who should be played by Liam Neeson in a movie because Wyatt also has a very particular set of skills. Skills he has acquired over a very long career. In Kill Shot, our antihero has been transplanted to coastal Sydney and Newcastle from his usual haunts in Victoria, but that’s the only appreciable difference in this, Disher’s ninth Wyatt caper crime thriller. Kill Shot is just as classy and enjoyable as Wyatts one through eight, propelled by Disher’s impeccable plotting and brilliant narrative drive, characterisation and pace.'  (Introduction)