David Gaunt

That's the trouble.

No, I didn't.

I couldn't work the premise forward, essentially, so I just couldn't go with it.

Too clever.

Too clever for me.

I'll give you three.

Oh, good.

While we're on the crime theme, and men have been writing books for a very long time, the case of Michael Connolly making money, Adrian McKinty not.

Gary Disher has been writing for 40-something years now, probably 40-something books, because he seems to do at least one a year.

And I doubt whether he made a living from it until somebody put one of them on the HSC or some such thing, because the market's too small.

That's purely and simply the case.

That was the case for McKinty as well.

But in peace is the newest offering from him, which is the follow-up to Bitter Wash Road and brought a new sort of rural noir before we had the phrase coined for us more recently.

It's set in somewhere between the Clare Valley and the Flinders Ranges, an outback one-cop town.

Paul Hirshhausen's been exiled there because his whistleblower, so a senior detective, finds his way back home.

which is what Peter Temple also did with the character in his acclaimed novels.

And in this case, there's lots happening in this outback town for no good reason.

And Hirsch, as he's known, Paul Hirschhausen, solves it with flair, aland, and great deal of good sense.

And it's a very, very good novel.

Second thing, taking us overseas, I can't but mention that Olive Kitteridge, one of my favourite creations of all time,