The other week I reported on another of Garry Disher’s books. The first book by the author I had ever read. When I returned it to the library, I searched out other books of his and found the one that won the attention of International readers and caused his books to be sought in the US. This is the book that brought Disher to the attention of everyone.
Dragon Man won the German Crime Fiction Critics Prize and was nominated for the Ned Kelly Award. It was copywrited in 1999. Since it was the first book to make it big, they printed an “About the Author” page at the back of the book. Here’s what it says:
Garry Disher grew up in rural South Australia and now lives near the Victorian coast. He received a B.A. from Adelaide University and a Masters from Monash. In 1978 he was awarded a creative writing fellowship to Stanford University, California, where he wrote his first short-story collection. A full-time writer for many years, he is the author of over forty books and received numerous awards and honors, some of which are novels, short story collections, writers’ handbooks, the PERSONAL Best anthologies, the Wyatt crime thrillers, and books for children. His novel, The Sunken Road (Allen & Unwin, 1996), was shortlisted for several major awards and nominated for the Booker Prize by his English publisher.
“The Dragon Man” introduces detective inspector Hal Challis to the world and it is an engaging and obviously well written mystery that I think all fans of the genre will enjoy. Carefully plotted, characters well drawn, and a very humanistic approach to the individual lives of people in the police force, regardless of where they might live.
Garry Disher grew up in Burra, in rural South Australia and today lives on the Mornington Peninsula in Australia with his wife and child. This area is a setting very much like that in “The Dragon Man”.
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