Set in a beach-shack town an hour from Melbourne, THE WAY IT IS NOW tells the story of a burnt-out cop named Charlie Deravin.
THE WAY IT IS NOW
by Garry Disher
Text Publishing (Australia), November 2021
Twenty years ago Charlie Deravin’s mother went missing near the family beach shack—believed murdered; body never found. His father has lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since. Now Charlie’s back living in the shack in Menlo Beach, on disciplinary leave from his job with the police sex-crimes unit, and permanent leave from his marriage. After two decades worrying away at the mystery of his mother’s disappearance, he’s run out of leads. Then the skeletal remains of two people are found in the excavation of a new building site—and the past comes crashing in on Charlie.
THE WAY IT IS NOW is the enthralling new novel by Garry Disher, one of Australia’s most loved and celebrated crime writers.
Garry Disher has published over fifty titles across multiple genres. With a growing international reputation for his best-selling crime novels, he has won four German and three Australian awards for best crime novel of the year, and been longlisted twice for a British CWA Dagger award. In 2018 he received the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of Queensland. Her current clients are a group of ex-military men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens. The latest crop looks like the usual mix of bad boys and sad boys. Then Robyn takes a second look at a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother.
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Hesse lives in a small coastal town, where a coalmine and power station are a part of the scenery, and a part of the ever-growing problem of climate change. His mother is a member of a local environmental group campaigning to close the mine and shut down the power station. It’s a no-brainer, of course, but Hesse is more interested in surfing—and in Fenna, the new exchange student from the Netherlands. But when someone seems to be trying to derail the campaign, and his friends’ families face losing their jobs, Hesse begins to realise that things are complex. Even though he’s reluctant to step into the spotlight, with Fenna’s encouragement he decides it’s time to make a stand. Because some things are too important to leave to everyone else. And even one small, nervous voice can make a difference. When Hesse agrees to speak at a protest meeting he has no idea of the storm he is about to unleash.