Rating: 
Summary: Good Mystery, Good Characters, Some Comedy
Review: Detective Inspector Hal Challis and must find a serial killer. His task is being complicated by the letters the killer is sending to the local newspaper, which publishes them. These letters contain information that the police would rather keep confidential.
His personal life is being interrupted with phone calls from his ex-wife who through long distance phone calls is trying to put their marriabe back in place. She's calling from the sanitarium where she has been imprisoned for the past eight years for attempted murder -- his.
To 'help' him, Detective Challis has a crew of helpers. It's not at all certain that they are more help or trouble. You kind of think that some of them might do better if they were to join his ex in the loony bin. ==A good mystery, characters with depth, a moving plot line, with some comedy thrown in. A good read.
Rating:
Summary: A great thriller to read during rainy weather
Review: Gary Disher is a native Australia and presently lives on the Victorian Coast. A lifetime writer, he was a fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford in 1978. He has written and published novels, short stories, writing how to's, the Wyatt crime thrillers, the Personal Best anthologies, and children's books. He has been short-listed for several awards and was nominated for the Booker Prize in England.
Detective Inspector Challis lives a modest life, but is known as the "Dragon Man" to his officers. His "beat" is the Peninsula, a piece of seaside land east of Melbourne, and he is a veteran homicide investigator. He has a thing going with Tessa Kane, the local newspaperwoman, and they both wonder if they even like each other. As the tale begins two girls are found murdered, a week apart. Someone is torching mailboxes, and it seems that there is human misery all around, from the cop who has been seduced by a woman in the Witness Protection Program to the new female cop who has a crush on a surfing instructor. It seems that all involved are only human, even Challis himself:
"It was a clumsy insult, delivered with a grin of Christmas cheer. Challis wanted to say that some people had all the luck but let it go. People underestimated him, he knew that, and didn't care. They thought that a policeman who liked to restore old aeroplanes and had a wife who'd tried to have him shot was a man who would allow things to happen to him. A man destined to remain stuck where he was in the force, detective inspector, no higher."
The Dragon Man is a character-driven psycho-mystery that is as much about the policemen and policewomen themselves as it is about a murdering psychopath. Challis is an every man type of character who is likeable because of his expertise and self-knowledge. He keeps his crew calm, even as they each go through life's tribulations. He certainly has much to contend with, but the little mini-vignettes that Disher throws out intertwine with a plot that has many tentacles. Disher bites off a lot with this dark mystery, but manages to pull everything around to a great denouement and satisfying conclusion. This tale is a great thriller to read during rainy weather all wrapped up in a blanket by the fire with a dog or kitty nearby to render comfort.
Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: Plodding Police Procedural, Down Under
Review: Hal Challis is a Detective Inspector in a rural peninsula near Melbourne, Australia. Going into the Christmas season, a serial killer is striking young women. Challis is good at his job, but he lives a lonely existence. His ex-wife keeps calling him from prison (she tried to kill him). The officers Challis works with have their own demons as well and don't always follow the rules. Young antisocials make life miserable and an aggresive reporter has a love-hate, off-on relationship with him.Will the killer be found before he strikes again? And who is it? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.
Garry Disher is a good writer. He creates a realistic ambience with just enough local geography and Aussie slang to make things believable. The book is not hard reading but it does drag at times, partly because there are so many characters to keep track of, and so much unrelieved darkness. If you like police procedurals and enjoy reading about the Aussies, you may enjoy this one. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber
Rating: 
Summary: engaging Australian police procedural
Review: In the Peninsular just southeast of Melbourne, Australia, Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his police team believe a serial killer is on the loose though only two murder-rapes have occurred, but a third potential female victim is missing. The culprit taunts the cops with letters that to Hal's sorrow end up on the front page of the Progress, edited by his girlfriend Tessa Kane. Hal pleads with Tessa not to publish the correspondence that encourages the killer, frightens people, and enflames everyone, but she says it is legally correct so she does it.
As the media attention to the Peninsular Highway Killer case widens, the investigation goes nowhere. However, the taunting killer with eyes seemingly everywhere turns the inquiries personal when he abducts Police Sergeant Destry's daughter as an apparent insult to Hal and his police squad.
This engaging Australian police procedural is an interesting serial killer investigation due to the intriguing Hal, who must deal with a lot of pressure, some personal, during the case. Hal's wife, who tried to kill him seven years ago, calls him all the time from her sanitarium home and his dispute with his girlfriend on all the news that is fit to print adds internal tension to the hero whose only escape is restoring of old airplanes. Though the sidebars like his spouse's calls take away from the inquiries, they add depth to the hero so that readers know what haunts him as he plays a deadly game of chess with the Peninsular Highway Killer.
Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A fine new Australian procedural
Review: In this series debut Australian Detective Inspector Hal Challis finds the dreaded Christmas season complicated by a serial killer arriving in the vanguard of the usual tourists on this coastal peninsula near Melbourne. A loner restoring a vintage "Dragon" airplane in his spare time, Challis endures almost daily phone calls from his disturbed wife, imprisoned after conspiring with her lover to murder him. A police officer doesn't have the luxury of screening his calls.
Point of view, while centered on Challis, shifts quickly among members of his team, as well as a local boy caught up in a crime spree, his pyromaniac bruiser of a mate, a New Zealand woman hiding from her past, and the killer.
The serial killer taunts the police in messages to the local newspaper. Challis' team, running down their few slim leads as well as handling the usual - from vandalized mailboxes to burglary, assault and arson - is a varied bunch. A brute-force constable is paired with a young woman whose ambitions he disparages; Sergeant van Alphen steals drugs to buy sex from the New Zealand woman, Sergeant Destry fends off her husband's bitterness and eyes the air-conditioning man, earnest Scobie Sutton worries about his daughter, and the boss, McQuarrie, sticks his nose in where it's least welcome. Challis, a newcomer to the Peninsula, a beautiful, insular place with the usual tensions between newcomer and native, has embarked on a touchy romance with the newspaper reporter.
The novel's character-driven pace moves along at a good clip as the cops become mired in red herrings, stumble over new information in unlikely places and keep on top of the normal mayhem. Award-winning author Disher makes his characters as interesting as his plot and the Australian setting is well realized.
Rating: 
Summary: A book for the beach or holidays
Review: Mildly diverting, a quick read. I picked the culprit from the first page of his appearance. Lots of read herrings - but you KNOW the characters with the records are the red herrings - don't you? Some nice character development, but I am afraid the denoument lacked any surprise for me.
Rating:
Summary: police procedural set in surf and wine country
Review: South of Melbourne stretches a thin peninsula popular with summer (Christmastime) holiday makers, wine makers, surfers, horse breeders, and a variety of local characters from rich to down at heels. Here in an airdrome hangar a DCI keeps a Dragon Rapide, mid30s de Havilland airplane, which he is restoring. Here a "monster" is abducting and attacking young women, hitchhikers and others, along the north-south highway. A detective sergeant's young daughter asks, if there is a monster is there a dragon too? Yes, a firebug: burning and watching burn houses, yards - and people. The police procedures are carefully told, so that we understand when there are or are not holidays (missed spots). I found a loose end in the galleys, I think, but a careful editor may clip it short before publication.
Rating:
Summary: A Gripping Read
Review: The Dragon Man is the first crime novel to depart from Disher's Wyatt series of crime books. Written in the third person, it is vivid with details and a world little known to Americans. Set in a coastal town of Melbourne, Australia, Disher has managed to capture in great details police life in that region. Our protagonist Hall Challis is up to his elbow trying to hunt down a killer who's working his way up the Old Peninsula Highway. Christmas is around the corner and the heat is unbearable. For Challis and his team, the nightmare begins. An enjoyable read from one of Australia's best writers.
Rating:
Summary: Dreary...
Review: This book should have been good. There are several separate story lines interwoven around the main one which I expected would add depth, complexity and interest. Disher has the potential to paint a vivid picture of small town Australia. But somehow - for me, at least - it just never picked up any momentum. Many of the characters were under-developed and one- dimensional and some of the situations described were just implausible to me. It was obvious from quite early in the story who the serial killer was (there was no other convincing suspect!)and there was a total lack of suspense or tension for much of the narrative. The action did pick up a litle towards the end, but that didn't compensate for the dreary plod through the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: What a Find!
Review: This is an excellent police procedural written by an Australian author of whom I'd never heard. His main character, Challis, is the classic haunted, somewhat melancholy, yet very-advanced-in-rank-for-his-age detective. In spite of loneliness, a barren, dry summer, and a milktoast superior, he treats his fellow officers, witnesses, and suspects with respect and understanding.
The setting is different from the NYC- or London-based crime thrillers--and the change in atmosphere is refreshing and adds to the atmosphere as both the summer heat and the townspeople's anxiety over a serial killer in their midst intensifies. The characters are carefully drawn and unique, ignoring the temptation to toss us the usual typecasts in a novel of this kind. Those who enjoy this genre will be happy to discover a great veteran author to explore.
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