Review: The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher

Title: The Way it is Now

Author: Garry Disher

Published: 2nd November 2021, Text Publishing

Status: Read November 2021 courtesy Text Publishing/Netgalley

+++++++

My Thoughts:

The Way It Is Now is an engaging stand alone crime novel from Australian author Garry Disher.

After an assault on his venal boss, Detective Senior Constable Charlie Deravin has been suspended from duty. While waiting to learn his fate, he’s staying at his childhood home in Menlo Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, spending his mornings in the surf and his afternoons reinvestigating the disappearance of his mother twenty years earlier.

In what is a tightly plotted, absorbing police procedural, Charlie attempts to unravel the truth behind the disappearance of Rose Deravin and the nine year old boy who vanished during a school excursion on the same day, after their bodies are discovered buried in a vacant lot. For decades Charlie’s father, Senior Sergeant Rhys Deravin, has lived under a cloud of suspicion, thought to have killed his wife because Rose had left him, but unlike his brother, Liam, Charlie had never believed it could be true. The investigators are none too impressed by Charlie’s insistence that there were flaws in the original investigation, or his interference in the current one, believing his motives self-serving.

Their attitude towards Charlie isn’t improved by the rumours surrounding his assault on his commanding officer. Ostensibly, Charlie has the high ground as his Inspector has been interfering in a trial involving the rape of a young woman by a footballer, but Charlie’s actions in undermining the defence’s case have put many offside. As a result both he, and his new girlfriend, are targeted by someone determined to shut them up, and the failure of Charlie’s colleagues to take the threats seriously reinforces his growing disillusionment with the force.

Disher’s style of storytelling tends to be low-key rather than driven by action, but elegant plotting engages and maintains interest, as does strong characterisation. The Way It is Now is an gripping and entertaining novel.

++++++

Available from Text Publishing

Or from your preferred retailer via Booko I Book Depository I Booktopia I Amazon