Deathdeal Garry Disher 1993

Dustjacket synopsis:
"Wyatt, professional hold-up man, is back in another tight remorseless thriller.

"On the run after the payroll heist that went horribly wrong in Paydirt, wanted by police and contract hitmen, he discovers that a shadowy third player has joined the hunt. Enter Stolle.

"Stolle specialises in finding people who don't want to be found. But who is his Brisbane client? Is this a trap Wyatt's walking into? And what of the score itself, the suburban bank with two million in the vault? It looks easy enough -- if you don't count a bank manager who owes a favour to the wrong people, a gun-running pilot, grifters, bent cops and punks with ambition...

"There's death in a deal like that."

Quotes:
"Disher writes with all the compassion of a well-placed bullet in the back of the head." - J.R. Carroll
"Real books, not junk fiction." - Booklist, U.S.A.
"Wyatt is the sort of character Australian movies are made of." - Sunday Age
"Wyatt's as hard-boiled as a hubcap." - Weekend Australian

First Paragraph

There were two of them and they came in hard and fast. They knew where the bed was and flanked it as Wyatt rolled onto his shoulder and grabbed at the backpack on the dusty carpet. He had his hand on the .38 in the side pocket and was swinging it up, finger tightening, when the cosh smacked across the back of his wrist. It was lead bound in cowhide and his arm went slack and useless. Then he felt it across his skull and he forgot about his hand and who the men were and how they'd known where to find him and everything else about it.

He came to on the floor, dust in his nose. A weak light was spilling into the room from the fluorescent strip above the grimy corner sink. He kept his eyes hooded. Apart from a minute flexing to test his bruised hand, he didn't move. The men had his pack on the chipped chest of drawers and something about it amused and irritated them.

'Jesus Christ, a radio scanner,' one man said, unloading the pack item by item. 'Portable phone, revolver, couple of changes of clothing. Just your typical hitcher, right?'

'The money?'

'Can't see any.'

'Whitney, the guy snatched a payroll.'

'Well, you take a look, then,' the man called Whitney said.

From the Allen and Unwin paperback edition, 1993.

Note:
This is number 3 in the Wyatt series of novels.

This page and its contents are copyright © 2002-06 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: November 16, 2006.