Sinister Intent by Karen M. Davis

Publisher's Synopsis

For eight years Lexie Rogers has been a uniform cop in Sydney’s red light district, Kings Cross. Having survived a violent knife attack, she’s seen it all – and far more than most cops her age. Now she’s back at work as the newest member of the Bondi Junction Detective’s Office and ready to start again.

One of her first jobs is to execute a search warrant at a bikie clubhouse, one of the two local gangs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. What she uncovers begins a chilling investigation into a vicious world where loyalty is deadly and unwavering and can’t be bought . . . Or can it?

Lexie forms an unlikely alliance with one of the bikies as he realises his family is in danger. But what neither of them knows is that Lexie is the one who’s in too deep. She knows too much.

As the stakes become personal it seems the unsung bond she has with a big bad bikie could be the one thing that could save her life.

My Review of Sinister Intent by Karen M. Davis

In the last year Detective Constable Lexie Rogers has been divorced, confronted by the death of her brother who was killed in the line of duty and stabbed by a bike leader. She’s clearly still traumatised by the stabbing and is frequently frozen by the sound of loud voices and the sight of any bike gang member. The obvious question is whether she’s really fit for duty.

She has recently returned to work after the injury she sustained from the knife wound and has just started Bondi Junction in the CIB (Criminal Investigation Branch). With a new partner and among a new set of colleagues, she’s very much still trying to prove herself.

As luck would have it, the case that she and her partner catch brings her in contact with a local bikie gang. It seems there’s a bikie war brewing between two of the local gangs. Straight off the bat her fears are sorely tested when she forms part of the team serving a search warrant at the clubhouse of the Devil’s Guardians. To say things didn’t go well would be understating it. We get a demonstration of exactly the level of trauma she is dealing with on a daily basis.

Things have barely started to return to normal following the clubhouse search when a member of the Devil’s Guardians is shot. Once again Lexie attends the scene and, as the bikie approaches death, makes a dying declaration to her. He essentially names the person who shot him, not by name but by nickname.

Now it’s time for the one big frustration I experienced in the early parts of the book and, maybe I’ve read too many crime novels (nah, not possible) but the moment I heard the killer’s nickname, I figured out who it was. I made the connection just like that (note: I just clicked my fingers when I said that last bit). It was very frustrating that a team of supposedly on-the-ball detectives couldn’t work it out.

Fortunately there were a few other bombshell twists in store that were well hidden and ensured plenty of big moments of surprise in the run up to the hectic finale.

Sinister Intent is an entertaining police procedural that focuses on a murder case, but in the background is the hint of police corruption along with the burgeoning bikie warfare danger. Through all of this, the trauma of PTSD raises its head as Lexie fights to overcome the nightmares caused by memories of a knife attack she suffered in a Kings Cross alley. It’s amazing that she is also able to fit in a whirlwind romance amid the quickly evolving murder investigation and the constant flashbacks that serve to knock her off balance.

It’s clear that author Karen Davis draws on her extensive experience as a long serving inner city Sydney police officer. The police jargon and procedure lands as particularly authentic, as is the banter within the police ranks and the insolent criminal attitude during interviews and door knocks.

The story is briskly paced, often tinged with the feeling that the clock is ticking as the noose slowly tightens around the killer’s neck. This is when the unpredictability begins and all hell breaks loose in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.