TAKE OUT is the third DS Stevie Hooper book by WA based author Felicity Young, the blurb on the back from Carmel Shure, co-convenor of the Sisters in Crime Australia is "Another skin-tight DSS Stevie Hooper investigation". And Carmel's a lady who knows her crime fiction.
From the Blurb:
You take my girls and I take you: Skin for Skin
A deserted house. The remains of an unfinished meal. An unexpected find. And a routine police investigation going nowhere.
Opening Lines:
The dead cycad might look like a rusty buzz-saw in a pot, Stevie thought, but it was hardly a portent for disaster.
When DSS Stevie Hooper steps into the empty Pavel house and someeone else's jurisdiction, she upsets more than the ego of a struggling suburban cop.
She has breached the defences of a ruthless group that has at its rotten heart a disregard for human life.
With her own family in crisis, the last thing Stevie needs is Skye, a driven young nurse, insisting she investigate the case. But when Skye turns up dead, Stevie knows she can't rest till she's avenged her friend's death.