Consolation by Garry Disher is the third novel featuring small town, Australian Constable Paul Hirschhausen. Reading the ARC of Consolation was like taking a slow, meandering drive in the country on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The tale unfolds with no big hurry while you take in the countryside and all of its attractions with no previously planned destination.

In Consolation, Constable Paul Hirschhausen is drawn into several investigations at once, while meeting more and more memorable characters throughout his patrolling territory.

The novel opens with "Hirsch" trying to catch a suspect creating havoc by snatching the undergarments of elderly women off of their clotheslines. With the development of this storyline, Disher throws even more at Hirsch by way of a father-son rampaging duo that seems to disappear into the wilderness at will, the unwanted attention of a school teacher, and questionable behavior of a local businessman.

The novels in this series are like watching a more adult version of America's "The Andy Griffith Show," with Hirsch interacting with memorable, often oddball Australian characters woven within interesting storylines.

Garry Disher's Paul Hirschhausen novels are highly recommended, especially to those that enjoy novels with fully developed characters, with wonderfully descriptive writing that tells stories best enjoyed as they slowly unfold.

Netgalley provided an ARC of this novel for the promise of a fair review.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I have not read the first two in this series, but that didn't really matter, apart from the fact that I suspect I would have been more invested in Paul's relationship with Wendy if I had. Paul is the only police officer in his town and the author shows clearly what being a good community officer involves. There was an awful lot going on here: child cruelty and neglect; shootings; a fire; fraud and embezzlement; kidnap; stalking etc etc. The plot remained coherent, despite all these different threads, although I did lose track of all the regional officers who were drafted in from time to time.

The motivation behind Katie's kidnap seemed a bit of a stretch to me, and that part of the plot was left slightly unresolved: I wanted to hear more about what Child Protection determined.

Overall though I enjoyed the wry tone and it was definitely a page-turner. Recommended.