{"product_id":"2026200011363-secondhand-the-dying-trade","title":"The Dying Trade","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSydney's glittering harbour has always concealed dark secrets, and in The Dying Trade, Peter Corris plunges readers into a world where those secrets have a body count. This debut novel introduces Cliff Hardy, a tough, streetwise private investigator navigating the seedy underbelly of 1970s Sydney, as he is hired to find a missing woman and uncovers a web of corruption, violence, and vice that stretches from the city's elegant harbourside mansions to its most dangerous back streets. Corris crafts a narrative that is simultaneously sun-drenched and deeply shadowed, delivering a hard-boiled thriller that crackles with authentic Australian atmosphere and moral ambiguity.\n\nThe Dying Trade is widely credited with establishing the Australian private-eye novel as a serious literary genre, and Corris himself is rightly regarded as the godfather of Australian crime fiction. Drawing heavily on the traditions of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett while anchoring every scene in the distinctly Australian landscape of Sydney, Corris constructs a protagonist in Cliff Hardy who is flawed, tenacious, and utterly compelling. With its sharp, economical prose and a plot that never loses momentum, this landmark novel launched one of Australian literature's most beloved and enduring crime series — leaving the reader hungry for the next dark corner Hardy will turn.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49161033220315,"sku":"2026200011363-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/8bad5a41-4a60-4c5f-987a-1a7f40817c21.png?v=1787189468","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200011363-secondhand-the-dying-trade","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}