The Dragon Man by Garry Disher takes place in a coastal region of Victoria, Australia. The novel opens as the killer is stalking his victim, a young woman with car trouble on a desolate stretch of highway. We soon learn this isn't the first victim and more will follow.
An interesting police procedural, I enjoyed the location and the overall story...although I wasn't particularly surprised by the ending. I felt a little overwhelmed by all the personal information given about each of the characters in the novel. This is the first in a series and I assume this was done to set the stage for development in future novels. I'm still not positive whether these should be referred to as the "Inspector Hal Challis" mysteries or the "Inspector Hal Challis & Sergeant Ellen Destry" mysteries (I've seen both descriptions at Amazon). Both characters stood out as central. I'll admit I liked the Challis character more than Ellen Destry.
This novel was read to fulfill half of the Australia portion of the Global Reading Challenge (Victoria, Australia) and I enjoyed it enough that I might read more in the series. After all, I now know so much about this group of law enforcement officers I might as well check out more of their cases!
5 comments:
Sounds like a goodie! Really enjoy your book reviews, Sis! :)
It is interesting to start a series at the start I think.
Sounds like it is right up my alley!
quid
Sounds like a good read even if the ending wasn't exactly surprising.
This one sounds interesting, but I have a few Australian novels on my TBR. I am reading a great NZ police procedural right now, though, for the challenge.
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