Hard Stop

After two recently laid-off suburban dads decide to steal a vanload of counterfeit Viagra from a mob-connected businessman, their easy-money plan gets a whole lot harder. Hard Stop is a comic crime novel set amid a soft housing market and a flaccid economy, where desperate times lead to bad behavior - and the stiffest of penalties. Jim Metz was pharmaceutical salesman of the year, but now he's partnered with his shady neighbor Dave Malley in a desperate bid to come up with some fast cash, aided by the pony-tailed, double-crossing ex-con Chimp Wiggins. Chimp's boss Jerzy "Shore" Shalinski brings in ex-cop-turned-PI Knocker Morris - a guy who makes his living somewhere between "legal" and "not so much" - to find out who grabbed his product. Enter an ambitious wannabe-Attorney General named William Blankley and his state-cop partner Nora Raines, who offer Morris a powerful incentive to help take down Shore with a made-for-TV police raid that will move the two of them up the political food chain - but leave Knocker stuck between a rock and a very hard place. Written with a humble nod to Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake and George Higgins, Hard Stop is the debut novel introducing ex-NYPD cop Knocker Morris, who turned down a gold shield to lead a not-so-quiet life in the Pennsylvania countryside.

Declan Davies was born on Long Island, New York and earned his daily bread as an advertising copywriter before turning to a life of crime fiction. He currently resides in the Delaware Valley of south-eastern Pennsylvania. His debut novel, Hard Stop, is a comic romp that manages to combine crime, politics and counterfeit Viagra.