[1] Hal Challis is head of a crime investigation unit for Victoria Police, based on the Mornington Peninsula.

Jeff Glorfeld, in The Age, noted the police procedural nature of the novel: "Down on the Mornington Peninsula, Garry Disher has again stripped away the pretty scenery to reveal the often grim lives of people on the fringes.

Through the eyes of the men and women staffing the Waterloo police station we see the violence and desperation, and the anger - of the citizens in their homes and on the streets, and in their own lives in particular.

There's nothing glamorous or even particularly fulfilling about this kind of police work...It is a triumph for Disher that such a bleak scenario becomes an enthralling piece of entertainment.

"[2] In The Sydney Morning Herald Sue Turnbull was impressed with the work: "Multilayered and multistranded, Chain of Evidence is written in vivid and uncompromising prose.