DI Joe Faraday's Management Assistant, Vanessa Parry, is dead. Killed in a head-on car smash. Her funeral is a bitter end to another grim week in the front line of the ongoing war against Portsmouth's surging crime wave. And now the seemingly untouchable DS Paul Winter, master of the scam, has been hurt in a way he could never have imagined: his wife has cancer. It's inoperable and she has barely three months to live. Paul Winter has only one instinct - to lash out. In its marrying of an intensely strong sense of place with believable and flawed characters for the reader to empathise with, "The Take" is an exemplar of classic crime fiction. Hurley's love for his hometown and uniquely close links with the local police force make for a crime series that reeks of authenticity. It gets to the core of the society that we have made for ourselves while never losing sight of the need for stories that pack a powerful emotional punch.