Review: THE HEAT, Garry Disher

• this edition Text Publishing 2015
  
• ISBN 9-781925-240412
• 246 pages
• #8 in the Wyatt series
• Read the first chapter
• Longlisted, General Fiction Book of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards, 2016
  award
• Shortlisted, Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction, 2016
• Garry Disher's website

Synopsis  (Text Publishing)

Wyatt needs a job.

A bank job would be nice, or a security van hold-up. As long as he doesn’t have to work with cocky idiots and strung-out meth-heads like the Pepper brothers. That’s the sort of miscalculation that buys you the wrong kind of time.

So he contacts a man who in the past put him on the right kind of heist. And finds himself in Noosa, stealing a painting for Hannah Sten.

He knows how it’s done: case the premises, set up escape routes and failsafes, get in and get out with the goods unrecognised. Make a good plan; back it up with another. And be very, very careful.

But who is his client? Who else wants that painting?

Sometimes, being very careful is not enough.

My Take

Six of the Wyatt series were published in the 1990s, the seventh, Wyatt, in 2010 (crime novel of the year in Australia), and the latest is The Heat

In Australian crime fiction a tale told from the point of view of the perpetrator of the crime rather than from the side of the law is unusual. But then Wyatt is not your usual thief. And he is not greedy. He just wants to make enough out of each job to keep his head above water and his name away from detection.

Right from the beginning he is cautious about the deal that Lois Quarrell is offering. He doesn't really trust her and he certainly doesn't want her to be the one that pulls the strings. The one thing about Wyatt is that he values his independence. And so he takes extra steps to ensure that he wrong foots Lois Quarrell, and, as it turns out, he is right.

My rating: 4.2

I've also read
4.7, WYATT
4.8, WHISPERING DEATH
4.7, BLOOD MOON