The Dragon Man

The problem with reading series out of order is that you know that some things will happen. But even with this, The Dragon Man works - the mystery works, the life on the peninsula is hinted at, allowing later books to expand and use this as a base and the inner workings of the police department are fascinating.

Being set on a peninsula south from Melbourne, the novel has a foreign feel to it - not the Scandinavian foreign but a familiar and yet unknown feeling that reminds you that Australia actually is part of the world - different, with opposite seasons but with the same problems as the rest of the world. The author is writing a novel for his Australian public so he is using the jargon and the English spoken down under - which you show more stop realizing midway through the novel because the action draws you in (the word that took me the longest to figure out was "ute" (for a vehicle) and after stubbornly not checking it online, it got clear what it is soon enough).

It is a first novel in a series so Disher introduces the main characters - Inspector Hal Challis, Sergeant Ellen Destry, their supporting stuff. He does it gradually with glimpses here and there and even at the end of the story you know that there is more to learn, that later books will add to the backstories and will expand them. But even when you know almost nothing about them, they do not feel like caricatures - their personalities shines through - not always a good one, but still there. And amongst these glimpses we also see glimpses of the world on a peninsula like this - the water situation, the sheep everywhere, the small towns, the bad roads. Disher's prose is sparse but he manages to convey a lot in short paragraphs - trusting that the reader will understand enough from a nod here and a sketch there.

And there is the crime of course - or the crimes would be more correct. A woman had been killed, now another one disappears and everyone is convinced that the two are connected. More abductions and dead women follow, a string of burglaries and fires and the police department is very busy in the weeks around Christmas and New Year's in the hot summer of Australia. Add to this a woman in Witness protection and Hal's wife (who is in prison - Disher takes the whole novel to actually get around to tell us the story of why and how (one of those things I knew from the second book), a reporter that he starts relationship and his love for old planes. We even meet Kitty (who will be so important in the second novel).

The resolution of the cases was handled very nicely - by the end you knew who had done what but you realized it gradually, in the last pages of the book. But there were no tricks, no suddenly found clues that noone saw before. It was logical and the way a mystery novel should be written - cops can and do miss connections when they do not make sense as connections.

I like this series more and more. show less

The Dragon Man by Australian author Garry Disher was a good, solid police procedural featuring Inspector Hal Challis and his investigative team who are tracking a number of crimes, among them a serial killer who is targeting young women along an isolated highway.

The book is set in the Peninsula, a rural area south-east of Melbourne. Challis is nicknamed the Dragon Man because of his love of airplanes, in particular his Dragon Rapide that he is is restoring. Although he lives a rather solitary life, we soon learn that his wife has spent the last seven years in prison for trying to murder him. The rest of Challis’ team are a varied yet interesting group. From the young constable, Pam Murphy who is both idealistic and ambitious to Ellen show more Destry who is a very capable detective that is dealing with a troubled marriage.

The Dragon Man is well written and engrossing. This is the first of the Inspector Challis series and so a lot of the book was aimed at introducing and developing the characters. I guessed the culprit but still enjoyed reading how the team painstakingly followed the few clues they had to a successful conclusion. I also enjoyed the fact that although hunting a serial killer was a top priority, the police also had to deal with investigating both a series of burglaries and the threat of an arsonist. The Dragon Man has lured me into adding yet another series to my reading. show less

The Dragon Man is a superb, complex, character-driven police procedural set on a peninsula southeast of Melbourne.

Inspector Hal Challis and an ensemble cast of police personal are very busy these days. A young woman is abducted and later found murdered. And now, just before Christmas, another woman has disappeared. Vandals are lighting mailboxes on fire, and there is a series of residential burglaries going on. Not to mention that two police officers are getting some unwanted attention about their heavy-handed, over-enthusiastic approach to policing.

Gary Disher was writing literary fiction before he turned to crime novels, and his skills are apparent from page one. Not only does he take the time to make his characters credible and show more interesting, (honestly, I've worked with police officers like those who populate this book), his setting varied and equally interesting, but the central mystery became deliciously more complex as the book when on. The fact that I fingered the serial killer from very early on took nothing away from the pleasure of reading this book. While not as cerebral as some of my favorite procedurals, and certainly not of the guns-drawn, action-laden ilk, this novel portrays a somewhat more realistic experience of policing. I'm going to look forward to more of Gary Disher's work. show less

The Dragon Man is the first book in a series featuring Australian detective Hal Challis, who is on the hunt for a serial killer. But that’s not the only crime under investigation, so readers are introduced to several other officers, a local news reporter, and some community ne’er-do-wells. Nearly everyone is dealing with a major issue in their personal life, from unstable relationships to substance abuse, so there’s considerable character development that lays the foundation for future installments. Challis’ investigation had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing, and his backstory has yet to be fully revealed. So yes, I’ll be back for more.

I loved this book. I loved its Australian-ness, its cast of imperfect yet credible characters, its delicately inter-twined plots. From the opening pages, which beautifully and accurately reflect the average Aussie summer, to the concluding chapter in which the stories are satisfyingly, if surprisingly, resolved this is a great read.

I know this is the first in a series featuring the same lead characters but, unlike so many series, it doesn’t feel like the author has deliberately left stuff out so he’ll have something to say in the next book. However, it’s also quite easy to see that there is room to develop the characters that appear here so I am looking forward to the next in this series.

This series was recommended to me by Goodreads. I am a fan of police procedurals and I like reading them set in different countries. This one is set in Australia in and around the small town of Waterloo, and it introduces Inspector Hal Challis. He's a hands-on copper who likes to restore old airplanes in his spare time. Hal's past life is revealed a bit in this book and we find out he has a very sad story to tell. His wife is in prison for attempted murder (his own). In spite of this, his investigative skills are still sharply honed. In this book he's trying to find our who is raping and killing young women along the Peninsula highway near Waterloo Also, there are a serries of aggravated burglaries and arson instances in his patch. At show more first he's not sure if the series of crimes are connected or not. As Hal and his team dig deeper they uncover two vicious killers operating in their small district. This is a noir mystery with lots of hardboiled action. The plot moves along quite quickly, and the character development is pretty good. I like the damaged Hal Challis, and I like his team - especially young Constable Pam Murphy. The book also delves into the fine line between good and bad cops and how easy it can be to fall off the straight path to justice. You may find if you decide to read this book, that you will not like all the police officers in Hal's team. A couple of them will make you stop and think about how prevalent this type of rogue behaviour is in our real-life forces. I recommend this series for anyone who enjoys police procedurals with a hardboiled edge. I will certainly be reading more in the series. show less

It was interesting reading this, the first in the series, right after the seventh instalment. The police officers seemed a lot more morally compromised here (apart from Hal and Pam). Did Ellen pocket $500 from a crime scene or did I misunderstand that bit? The ending was satisfactory to me, but I wish Hal wouldn't cosy up to the reporter - when has that ever ended well?