Constable Paul Hirschhausen, aka Hirsch, is back for a firth time, patrolling the dry country or regional South Australia in Mischance Creek. Disher, was presented with a Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 at which point there was only one Hirsch novel (Bitter Wash Road). Disher returned to the character in 2019’s Peace and has since gone on to deliver some of the best books of his career. The third book in this series, Consolation, won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction in 2021, and an unconnected novel, Sanctuary was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly Award and the British Crime Writers Association’s Silver Dagger. So readers should expect to be in good hands, and Mischance Creek does not disappoint.
When Mischance Creek opens Hirsch is undertaking his annual firearms audit. This involves visiting everyone with a licenced firearm and ensuring that the weapons are securely stored and accounted for. His first visit finds a drought-impacted farmer having to shoot some of his flock, then he moves on to a recluse, Alastair Stanyer brother of a successful landholder and brother-in-law to the mayor. Stanyer does a runner after the visit for reasons that Hirsch cannot quite fathom but which he will continue to probe at as other mysteries and issues come his way. One of those is dealing with the local sovereign citizens, people who believe that the laws don’t apply to them. And another is helping a woman called Annika Nordrum who has come to the area to re-investigate the disappearance of her mother and death of her father seven years before while on a fossicking expedition, an unsolved mystery that grabs his attention.
There is plenty more going on in Mischance Creek and plenty of opportunity to explore current issues. This includes local government corruption, fly tipping, protection of Aboriginal sacred sites and even the impact of closing and merging regional schools. All of these issues are handled with the nuance and understanding that they deserve.
While there are clearly flawed and dangerous people in Hirsch’s world, and this is a crime story goes to some dark places, this is far from a black and white depiction of this community (although Disher’s view of some of these issues is fairly clear). It will not be hard for regular crime readers to join some of the dots before Hirsch, but the pleasure here is in the way Disher weaves and pulls the threads together, building to more than one climax.
As always, the firm centre of this novel and this series is Paul Hirschhausen. Not only a dogged investigator but a man who feels the responsibility of caring for his community. Unlike many of the damaged characters who inhabit much of crime fiction, Hirsch is just an ordinary policeman who wants to be with his partner and her daughter, who wants to spend more time with his ageing mother but also finds excuses to limit that time and is respected as part of the local regional team.
In Mischance Creek, Disher shows once again why he is one of the masters of Australian rural crime fiction. The Hirsch series is Australian rural crime but much like Disher’s Peninsula series, has its own particular flavour, taking a more communal and ground level view. And once again Disher uses a complex community as the vehicle to deliver a mix of seemingly banal but incisive country policing and hot button social issues.
Mischance Creek by Garry Disher
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