PORTA VILLA BLUES

Garry Disher’s anti-hero and professional thief, Wyatt, makes a welcome return in this Australian noir thriller which was actually written in 1995 but now makes its belated debut at Soho Crime.

The date is important as it explains the lack of i-pads, i-pods, Wi-Fi and all the other proliferation of technological miracles which we take for granted today.

Wyatt reminds me of Lee Child’s Reacher in that he is his own man and another ex-military, in this case Vietnam.

In this novel, the fifth in the series, Wyatt battles against bent coppers and magistrates, blackmail and murder along the way to an exciting denouement in this taut and pacy journey through the antipodean underworld, a journey which takes him from his native Australia to a Melanesian island.

The story is full of the Larrikins and Jackeroos that infest the Australian underworld giving the book a raw authenticity and keeping the reader interested right to the very end.

Now keep an eye open for the other books in the Wyatt series.