Tom Howard is a new character/pseudonymous author in the same general region inhabited so prominently by Peter Corris’ Cliff Hardy, although with the publication of his first two novels it remains to be seen how far Howard will be able to rival Corris’ talent for bringing out the local flavour of crime and corruption, and how far his books will simply have Australian settings grafted on to classic forms of the whodunnit. Of the two Howard novels under review The Health Farm Murders follows the formula of a small isolated community with its numbers dropping off like ninepins, while The Beach-Front Murders is a much more credible account of passion and loneliness, of the lure and isolation of the big city.

Tom Howard is a university-educated cop in the police prosecutions branch with a habit of getting caught up in the real action of crime. Like Cliff Hardy he is a loner, but he is even more downbeat than Hardy. If Cliff Hardy can only afford to drive an old Falcon, he manages to wear his poverty with style and the sure knowledge of his cool incorruptibility. He lives in Glebe amongst Sydney’s inner-city trendies, and if few of them would be able to emulate his courage or integrity they will at least have a cerebral appreciation of his values and welcome him as a resident adding to the local colour. And of course he shares his terrace house with a student-lodger, the exotic young Hilde.