Crosskill by Garry Disher
Written: Jun 08 '05 (Updated Jul 16 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Terrific hardboiled story featuring a hardbitten crook
Cons: ..
The Bottom Line: This is a hardboiled story featuring anti-hero criminal Wyatt as he attempts to get out from under the mob's control.
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| damieng's Full Review: Crosskill Books |
Hardboiled readers on the lookout for a lean, tough crime series will be pleased to learn of a hidden Australian gem just begging to be discovered. Crosskill is the 4th book in Garry Disher’s crime series featuring the ever dour Wyatt. The books of this series are best read in order with the events of each successive book picking up soon after the previous book ends. In the case of Crosskill, the story takes place a few months after Deathdeal finished.
Wyatt is a thief specialising in only 3 or 4 big heists a year, going to ground in between time and living off the proceeds for the rest of the year. At least, that's how it worked until around 12 months ago. Since then things have turned sour, jobs have not been paying off and the organised mob from Sydney, referred to simply as The Outfit, have put a contract out on him. He is also becoming obsessed with the thought of revenge on the Mesic family, a crime family who has $300,000 that he feels is rightfully his. After all, he stole it fair and square. He plans to steal it back.
But Wyatt’s sick and tired of having to constantly dodge the attempts to kill him all the time as people come to try to collect the bounty on his head. It has become impossible to organize a decent heist with the distraction it causes, never knowing whether the man he recruits for the job is more interested in selling Wyatt out than the task at hand.
So he travels to Sydney to deal with the problem head on. In a few chapters that are very reminiscent of plot from The Outfit by Richard Stark, Wyatt decides to hit the Sydney Outfit where it hurts most, in their hip pocket. His aim is to convince them that it’s just not worth the effort financially to keep pursuing him. He makes a convincing argument and sweetens the deal by offering to help them take over the Mesic family’s business, thus killing two birds with one stone.
The main game then takes place back in Melbourne with Wyatt planning to hit the Mesic family with the aim for Wyatt and his partner to get into the heavily fortified Mesic compound, subdue the family and crack the safe that is reportedly full of cash. Easy.
To add a little bit of variety to the story, Wyatt teams up with a trusted colleague in Sydney named Jardine. I’m loosely using the word “trusted” here because in Wyatt’s world trust doesn’t run particularly deeply, but the man has always remained loyal and efficient and this is good enough for Wyatt. It’s unusual for Wyatt to work with someone he respects, he usually tends to put up with fellow crooks as a necessary evil, but Jardine adds another dimension to the Wyatt persona as he prompts a rarely seen trait – emotion.
The big drawcard to the Wyatt series is that Wyatt is a man of action and makes his decisions quickly and assuredly, carrying them out without needless hesitation. He is also completely impassive, devoid of sentiment or emotion. The result is a story that simply flies along, stating a goal (the planned heist) and then going ahead and acting on the plan. It’s tough, occasionally heartless and Wyatt comes across as a little inhuman but it’s also very compelling reading.
Crosskill maintains the cold economy of description that distinguishes the entire series and is just as hardbitten and mean. All characters are totally uncompromising and life means very little, particularly when money is involved.
A consistent feature of the series is the careful plotting that Disher undertakes, setting up a major plan calculating risks and adjusting for them with fallback schemes and plans, then introducing unexpected problems for Wyatt to overcome. Crosskill is nicely set up with this kind of scheme and there are any number of shady criminals, bent cops and crooks all converging on the Mesic family ensuring that just about anything can happen in the end.
So, for the 4th time Wyatt embarks on a high stakes mission knowingly entering the lion’s den, but this time the payoff he’s hoping to walk away with is his life.
The complete Wyatt series is as follows:
Kickback (1991)
Paydirt (1992)
Deathdeal (1993)
Crosskill (1994)
Port Vila Blues (1995)
The Fallout (1997)
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
damieng
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Location: Sydney, Australia
Reviews written: 427
Trusted by: 94 members
About Me:
Stop thanking me for my patience...I don't have any.
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