Sanctuary

Sanctuary is a stand-alone novel by award-winning, best-selling Australian author, Garry Disher. Grace is a thief, and she’s very good at it. She started as a pre-teen, was taught by the best, and knows her stuff, what she can offload quickly, and for how much. And three vital things she has learned: know when (and how) to walk away, keep it simple, and always have a plan B.

So when, at a Brisbane Stamp Expo, she spots someone who has reason to hold a grudge against her, she clears off, quick smart, heads south, changes her name, gets a different car, stays under the radar: she’s done this many times before. By the time she gets to the Adelaide Hills, though, she realises she’s tired of it: “All I want is a normal life,” is what keeps running through her head. But for someone like her, is that even possible?

In Battendorf, she spots a “help wanted” sign in Mandel’s Collectibles: she could do that, she’s good with antiques and vintage items. Her new boss is nervy, but gives Grace free rein, and the little shop does well. What Grace only learns much later is that Erin Mandel is hiding from a very toxic ex.

Going straight is harder than Grace realised, especially when there such rich pickings to be had under the cover of a buying trip to the Barossa. Is that to be her undoing? Or is it the humanity she can’t help showing in a critical moment, in combination with the appearance of said ex?

Once again, Disher effortlessly evokes his setting and his plot is intriguing enough to keep the pages turning. His characters are well-rounded and thoroughly credible: some are utterly despicable, one engaging in a particularly heinous scam; others, the reader will soon enough be hoping, even wishing, will elude capture: Grace for her courage and compassion, Adam for his conscience.

With Disher’s work, the reader often faces the dilemma: devour the novel quickly, because it’s so good and so hard to put down, or draw it out, because you don’t want the pleasure of it to end. This is brilliant Aussie crime from an author who never disappoints.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Serpents Tail/Viper

I’m a huge Garry Disher fan, from his short stories, young adult fiction (the Divine Wind is truly superb), his Wyatt series with its amoral central protagonist and the Mornington Penunsula police procedurals. My fave tho is the Hirsch series, stunning characters and a depiction of landscape so beautiful and dangerous that it is a character (or many), taut prose and brilliant plotting. That said this standalone, which has enormous potential to become a series is every bit as good. Perhaps Disher is giving a nod to Dickensian naming conventions in naming the main character Grace. She’s a hard bitten, brutally pragmatic criminal loner. She’s capable of meaningful interpersonal relationships but historically they have been of convenience so we’re not sure we can trust their sincerity entirely. And yet as the narratives present winds out we see she’s capable of developing genuine human relationships, perhaps longing for them. It starts to feel very much like she’s plotting a way out of the very lonely criminal lifestyle she’s grown into… but her past keeps catching up with her, making any potential transition pretty difficult. Post the superb book ending plot twist we really don’t know if she’s actually capable of making a clean break from her past life, nor it’s old habits… but I really want to find out.