Silent Kill is a 2014 Australian crime novel by Peter Corris. It is the thirty-second novel and thirty-ninth book overall featuring the author's recurring private detective character Cliff Hardy.
Author: Peter Corris Language: English Series: Cliff Hardy Genre: Crime fiction Publisher: Allen and Unwin Publication date: 1 January 2014 Publication place: Australia Media type: Print Pages: 264 ISBN: 9781743316375 Preceded by: The Dunbar Case Followed by: Gun Control
Synopsis
Rory O'Hara is an ex-student agitator and former independent MP attempting to build support for a new political party. He has enemies and was recently injured in a car accident that may not have been accidental. Cliff Hardy is engaged by an old friend to join O'Hara's entourage to Wollongong as a bodyguard. The political campaign falls apart when O'Hara's girlfriend is kidnapped and his nurse is murdered. Hardy is later hired by the nurse's brother to find her killer, leading him on an investigation across Australia.
Critical reception
Sue Turnbull, writing in The Age, commented that the novel "manages to resonate both with the political impulses of a whistleblower in the Julian Assange mode, and the more recent ICAC inquiry into government corruption in NSW." Glenn Mulcaster in The Weekly Times described it as "a one-session read" and "difficult to put down."
Dedication: For Tom and Linda Epigraph: "If there's any milk been spilt, I trust you to get it back into the bottle...Tidy him up." – John le Carré, Smiley's People
