Win, Lose or Draw

Ned Kelly Award–winner Corris’s workmanlike 42nd and final crime novel featuring PI Cliff Hardy (after 2016’s That Empty Feeling) takes Hardy on a fast-paced, libation-fueled chase from Sydney to various towns along the Australian coast in search of missing teen Juliana Fonteyn. Though he’s recovering from bypass surgery and admits to a prejudice against the rich, Hardy’s declining PI firm needs a cash infusion, so when Juliana’s distraught and exceedingly well-heeled father asks him to find her, Hardy takes on the job. Aided by a number of shady part-time assistants and freely spending Fonteyn’s money, Hardy runs afoul of crooked cops and some sleazy gangsters, in particular an Errol Flynn look-alike who claims to be the Hollywood actor’s illegitimate son. The comfortably predictable plot builds to a less than earth-shaking resolution, but readers will enjoy the ride through the mean Australian streets and beaches. (Sept.)