Fallout

By the fifth hold-up the papers are calling him the bush bandit. An inspector of police, flat, inexpressive, resistant to the pull of the cameras, is less colourful: We are looking for a male person who is armed and should be considered dangerous. His method of operation is essentially the same in every case. He targets a bank in a country town within an area covering west and south-western Victoria and east and south-eastern South Australia. He selects a quiet period when there are few if any customers, then menaces bank staff with a sawn-off shotgun, demanding cash from the tills. To date, we have no reports of an accomplice. I repeat, this person is armed. On no account should he be approached.
          There are things that the inspector doesn t say. He doesn t say that the police are at a loss to pinpoint an operating base for the man. Given the area he moves in, the bush bandit might be holed up in Mount Gambier, Bordertown, Horsham, even  somewhere up on the River Murray. Or he might be operating from Adelaide, even Melbourne.

          The inspector doesn t say how effective the bandit is. First, the shotgun, its blunt snout, those twin black staring mouths. Everyone knows about shotguns, knows the massive damage they inflict at close range, the spread of the pellets, scattering and cutting like hornets. The dull gleam of the metal, the worn stock, the smell of gun oil. A shotgun spells gaping death, and so you are quiescent before it. You spread yourself out on the floor, you empty the till, you forget about being a hero.
         Then there is the bandit himself. Witness descriptions tally for each of the five hold-ups. The man is tall and slender and he moves well. Athletic, one bank teller said. No wasted motions, said another. Other than that there is no clear description of the bush bandit. He varies his dress

Garry Disher is one of Australia's best-known novelists. He's published over forty books in a range of genres, including crime, children's books, and Australian history. His Hal Challis crime series is also published in the US by Soho Crime. He lives on the Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne.

Praise for Fallout

"Disher continues to show an impressive knack for planning capers that go like clockwork."
Kirkus Reviews

Praise for the Wyatt series

"Like an Australian Bob le Flambeur, Disher's titular robber is smooth, calm and planning a big heist."
Entertainment Weekly
 
There's real technique on show here.... it's so fast and hard-written that it becomes a blur, a flurry of activity that dazzles the senses.... Wyatt is a thrill-laden pleasure. I can't wait to read the others.
ABC Radio
 
  Outstanding.... The spare, economical prose perfectly suits this tale of mad love and crimes gone wrong, which will remind many of Westlake's better Parker novels. Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Endlessly cool, enormously competent.... a banquet for those who like it uncut and unsparing.
Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
 
Brilliant.... The similarities with another fictional thief Richard Stark's antihero Parker are many.
Seattle Times
 
Disher takes us back to the golden age of thrillers, a time when they were fast, taut and dependably suspenseful.
Kirkus Reviews
 
A satisfying read, with a suspenseful denouement... recommended.
Spinetingler Magazine


Praise for the Garry Disher

"Colorful . . . . Disher has literary talent and imagination." Chicago Tribune

"A first-rate Australian author." The New York Times Book Review

"Disher creates the kind of complex, edgy, principled yet flawed characters it's a pleasure to worry about." Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review