While working at her "other" job, stripping at The Royal Hotel in Richmond, Simone is approached by an old friend from her childhood days in Sydney. Andi Fowler is studying journalism and believes she has stumbled onto the makings of a big story. She asks Simone to help her out by providing some surveillance work. It's a request that Simone is forced to refuse, but a day or so later she is galvanised into action when she picks up a voicemail message from Andi with a panicked message that sends shockwaves through her: "You've gotta come get me or I'm gonna die."

Her investigation leads Simone to the ultra chic Jouissance restaurant where Andi works as a waitress and into the life of wild child celebrity chef Trip Sibley. Trip's the flavour of the month in the hospitality industry, about to star in his own prime time cooking show and is an acknowledged stud muffin. Simone, accompanied by her eager sidekick and best friend Chloe hit Jouissance with the plan of winning the trust of the staff in the hope that they might catch a snippet or two of gossip that will give them a clue as to the whereabouts of Andi.

What Simone finds out is that it's not a great idea to bring along a hard-drinking, drug-taking nympho as your sidekick when trying to endear yourself to potential witnesses. But she also discovers that there is something decidedly dodgy going on in that restaurant, judging by the back-door deliveries supervised by Trip after midnight.

Then, in a sickening changing of gears, Cherry Pie transforms from a semi-serious missing person investigation into a highly volatile situation in which one person is murdered in front of Simone and has her fleeing Melbourne in fear for her life.

She flees to Sydney and moves in to her mother's house. Interestingly, her mother is a divorced former feminist who has settled into a quiet lifestyle with a long-term boyfriend. The pace is a little more than the hard-drinking, hard-living stripper/investigator is used to, but you take your sanctuary where you can get it.

Far from being the safe haven that Simone is looking for, the story explodes into a flurry of activity that becomes bleaker and bleaker for her. For starters, the owner of Jouissance, Sam Doyle lives there, for another Trip Sibley is visiting the city, and finally, police officer Alex Christakos - engaged police officer Alex Christakos, the forbidden fruit of her lusty desires - is also in town investigating a major fraud case. All of these factors are highly relevant to Simone's case and despite repeated warnings for her to leave well enough alone, she wades into the middle of it all with disastrous results.

Cherry Pie is a story of two distinct tones with the more light-hearted carefree attitude of Simone dominating in Melbourne before the jolting reality of the seriousness of what she has gotten herself into takes over. The stakes are raised considerably when in Sydney and we find ourselves in the middle of an edge of the seat thriller.

Leigh Redhead does a tremendous job of building up the intensity of the story at a relentless rate, luring you into believing that the light-hearted moments would dominate. But things get very serious very quickly and suddenly you find yourself faced with a challenging and complex thriller. Disparate storylines are snapped together with unerring accuracy to form a tight, well-constructed plot that sizzles along at a solid rate.

As with many of your better series there comes a point where we get to examine the lead character's background to give us an insight into their present behaviour. Cherry Pie provides that much needed insight revealing a remarkably complex person in Simone Kirsch. Already a strikingly unique character in the crime genre this looks to be the breakout book to launch her as a contemporary Australian literary hero alongside Marele Day's Claudia Valentine, Gabrielle Lord's Gemma Lincoln and Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy.

A unique series has just grown stronger with the inclusion of Cherry Pie and lovers of detective novels will appreciate the edginess of this story. Simone Kirsch is getting tougher, yet she's still prepared to be the cheeky stripper when she has to.