The Dragon Man (A Hal Challis Investigation Book 1)

Sorry about the title of this review. I just couldn't help myself. I only discovered Garry Disher and his Peninsular series about 5 weeks ago and fell in love with them straight away. Garry's writing is wonderfully down to Earth and the fact that he is writing about my part of the world makes this series so very wonderful for me to read. And when I say, 'my part of the world', I really mean my part of the world.I lived on the Mornington Peninsular, specifically in Rosebud (which is often mentioned) during my childhood and still visit the area frequently. It is a beautiful part of the world. My father was one of the construction workers on the Devil's Bend Reservoir, which is also mentioned quite often, though not for its donation to the ecology of the Peninsular area in this book.Waterloo, Upper Penzance and Penzance Beach are made up locations, but all of the other townships mentioned are real.You have read the blurb so I won't rehash the story here, other than to say that you will become invested in the lives of all the major characters and hopefully, you will like them, flaws and all.The Dragon Man was not the first book in the series that I read, so it was good to go back to the start and get the groundwork for all the characters and the beginning of the formation of the CIU, at Waterloo.Australian readers will love this book, particularly Victorians. I was wonderful to read about an area that I know so well; it really has bought the whole series to life for me..A previous (American, i think) reviewer said that the Peninsular was in Queensland. It is not. It is way south of there, the southern most tip of the Eastern mainland of Australia, Victoria. Our capital city is Melbourne, not Brisbane.I hope nobody minds the geography lesson. I really recommend this book and all the others in the series if you like a good police procedural.Lesley

This has been sitting on my "to-be-read" shelf for ages. I remember reading a very positive review and buying on that basis but it never jumped into my hand when I was looking for something to read until recently. I'm glad I finally opened it because it is an enjoyable little mystery involving a serial killer on the peninsula south of Melbourne, Australia. The change of venue from the usual American and British procedurals was refreshing and the writing in this book is good. As a personal plus, I've spent some time near the area where most of the action takes place and I found it true to my memory. The killer is actually easy to spot but the characters are so well written that the journey is everything in this book. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is a study in contradictions, as are most such literary, policemen, but he has some original angles as well. I was especially taken with the development of the two awful juvenile delinquents who leave a path of destruction throughout the book. They are truly our worst nightmare.I believe this is Garry Disher's fist novel and I look forward to more of his work. It is a nice change of venue.

There’s a lot to like in this book. Challis and his police colleagues are all compelling characters with interesting backstories. The bad guys are somewhat less interesting, but I don’t expect to be seeing them again anyway. I like the Australian setting. The plot is chock full of coincidences, which I didn’t love, yet somehow the author kept leaving just enough loose ends to keep me flipping pages and guessing right to the end. I got this as an ebook at a bargain price. Only my wallet prevents me from going right on to the next in the series. And P.S.: I don’t recall noticing a single typo or grammatical error; rare indeed in the world of low-cost ebooks these days.

This is a great book and well worth the read. It is the first book in the series so start with this one. This is more than just a police procedure book. What makes this book so real are the characters are so real. All of the characters have their own lives, their own problems and diffculties and all of the characters have different personalities but they all happen to be policeman and have to work at the same location. This is real life. Also there is more than one crime going on in the district, and the police have more than one job to do at a time. So this also fits with real life. I am reading the whole series.

was that every character was unique and interesting. No stock characters. Reminded me a little of The Wire. Good cops, smart cops, dumb cops, good bad guys, smart bad guys, dumb bad guys. As a fan of procedurals, I know good ones from bad ones. This one is well plotted and moves well. The main character who works on restoring Dragon airplanes. I already downloaded the second book.

This is sound example of the genre, but I found it too generic in some respects. The hero is not very heroic, your typical flawed outsider copper. All of the other police seems to be dishonest to some extent, it made me pity the people of the Mornington Peninsula. The location was nicely represented, and the various criminals rang true but I never felt any urgency to know what was going to happen. This is the first of a series and I think those who read the series would get to know the various police characters better and so start to care about them, but just one book hasn't done it for me

Interesting characters and settings , as it is set in the Peninsula near Melbourne , and contains small details such as how to live when preserving water plus the minutae of living in rural Aus . I enjoyed this book , the main character was beleivable and lots of lesser characters added depth to the book . as well . The plot was as usual , the murder mystery , but with a few unexpected twists and turns . Enjoyable . well written , and deserves the 5 stars I gave it! Will look for the rest of his books as he is a new author to me .

This was my first introduction to Gary Disher and I was so excited to have found a new fabulous Aussie author. His description of the Mornington Pen is first rate - you can almost smell the salt air.The plot and characters are interesting and as this is the first in a series I can't wait to read the rest.

Women are being kidnapped and murdered along a stretch of highway in an outer suburb of Melbourne and the murderer is challenging the police to catch him.The likeable Detective Inspector Challis leads the investigation although many police characters come into play, some of them troubled. There is thus some life in the novel as the characters face their work and personal challenges. I failed to pick the perpetrator so it is fair to say that Disher did weave a reasonable tale. However, there wasn't a great deal of depth to the story and he did leave some loose ends.I bought this book because I am from Melbourne so I confess to having had a vested interest. But the plot is best described as standard rather than truly absorbing. 7/10

I'm not sure why, but Dragon Man didn't have the same impact on me as Bitterwash Road and its sequel ,Peace. A good read but nothing to really set it apart from any other police procedural. Disappointing damp squib of an ending too.

I started reading Garry Fisher with his two Hirsch novels, then Under the Cold Bright Lights. Eager for more I started the Peninsula series and wasn't disappointed.

Looking forward to the development of the characters and further descriptions of an area of Victoria which I find easy to visualise.

The Dragon Man is first in a series of five, soon to be six, novels about Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his Sergeant, Ellen Destry. It's one of my favourite kinds of novel, in that it describes in detail a police investigation into a crime, provides a strong sense of location and society, and also addresses the personal and professional lives of the detectives concerned.The crime in this case occurs when a woman is abducted on the Old Peninsula Highway in a (fictional) area south-east of Melbourne, Australia. Challis is responsible for crime over a fairly large area in this peninsula, where constant state cutbacks to social services make the job of the police harder - not just because of the increased likelihood of crime, but in creating a challenge for people's daily lives, for example in organising child care when nurseries are closed down and you have to work shifts.Challis is a serious-minded policeman, whose disastrous marriage has resulted in his wife being imprisoned. His domestic history is gradually revealed via his wife's late-night, drunk phone calls to her husband from jail - he cannot bear to cut her off completely by divorcing her. Challis is a loner, taking refuge from his less than satisfactory personal life and his heavy workload via his hobby of slowly restoring a vintage World War Two-era plane. His sergeant, Destry, is a highly competent police officer but has her own domestic struggles in the shape of a resentful husband who is also a policeman but at a lower rank, and a sulky teenage daughter - a telling subplot which I am sure reflects many people's experiences.The story of the crime investigation is very well paced throughout the book as we come to learn more about the day-to-day life of people who live in the Peninsula, as well as and the inner lives of the various members of the police force, positive and negative, as they attempt to find the person who is abducting and killing vulnerable women.There are several intriguing threads to the main plot, which gradually come together in a tense climax. I have to admit that the identity of the perpetrator was pretty obvious, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this highly atmospheric novel, which transported me right into the lives and concerns of the people within its pages. I'm definitely going to seek out the subsequent novels in the series.