Deal Me Out — Peter Corris

Portrait of a PI: Name - Cliff Hardy. Turf - The rowdy pubs and sleepy suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Greatest Strength - Helping friends in trouble. Worst Weakness - Helping friends in trouble. He's a sucker for a sob story, and one of his pals has a heartbreaker. Hardy's never seen Terry Reeves so down. The owner of Bargain Rental Car, Reeves is facing financial ruin after five of his fleet are stolen. Hardy smells organized crime - the game's too slick to be run by amateurs. But there's a bigger shock in store. One of the car thieves, immortalized on videotape, is none other than Bill Mountain, a TV writer and erstwhile drinking buddy of Cliff's. Mountain's the only lead Hardy's got and he follows him into the bowels of the perverse, drug-pervaded world of Sydney's sickest citizens. What he sees there makes even the hard-boiled Hardy want out of the game - before he gets sucked in forever.