Peter Corris, author of the ‘Cliff Hardy’ novels, has died in his Sydney home aged 76.

Regarded as ‘the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime writing’, Corris produced over a hundred books over the course of his career.

His character Cliff Hardy is an iconic one in Australian crime literature, and he appeared in over 50 novels, which makes the Hardy series the longest-running book series in Australian publishing history.

Corris’s last offering to the world was Win, Lose or Draw, the final Hardy novel. The crimewriter was prevented from writing for the last year of his life due to diabetes-induced blindness.

Tributes have flooded in from literary figures such as ex-Sydney Morning Herald Literary Editor Susan Wyndham, who wrote on Twitter that ‘A piece of Sydney died’ with the loss of Corris.

Read our 2011 profile of the writer, in which he reflects on his legacy, love of Sydney, and tells us how Fred Hollow saved his life.