THE MEANEST OF TIMES
BY MATTHEW LOUIS
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One good deed in a world gone rotten spirals into a nightmare...
All Reed Hubbard wanted was a cheap sandwich and an ice pack after a humiliating night on the small-time cage fighting circuit. But when he stumbles upon an atrocity in progress, he does what he thinks is right—and finds himself in the middle of a shadow war in which no quarter is asked or given.
A white nationalist gang is determined purge a Mexican cartel from the decaying streets of Highland City, and Reed has just placed himself in the crosshairs of the gang's preternaturally intelligent leader and the terrifying henchmen—and the beautiful, broken sex worker—whom the man commands.
Now, to save his life, Reed just may have to surrender his soul. Because in these times, nobody wins...the lucky ones just get out alive.
With the breakneck plotting of Don Winslow, the moral irony of Jim Thompson, and the psychological realism of Dennis Lehane, The Meanest of Times will take you on a ride you're unlikely forget—even if you wish you could.
Praise for the Novels of Matthew Louis
For Roots Down to Hell
“Stunningly noir…one of those reads you’ll devour in one or two sittings.”
—Vincent Zandri, New York Times and USA Today bestselling, ITW Thriller and PWA Shamus Award-winning author of Her Darkest Secret and the Dick Moonlight PI series
“Brilliant and brutally real. A searing, sharp tale of a man on the razor’s edge.”
—Paul D. Brazill, author of Stray Bullets and Guns of Brixton
“This is noir. This is what noir is supposed to be…Roots Down to Hell takes risks no censor board, be it of the right or left-wing ilk, would ever allow.”
—Alec Cizak, author of Cool It Down
For The Wrong Man
“A short fast trip down the road to hell with prose as hard as a hammer. If your reading diet requires something tough and bloody, here it is. Grab it.”
—Bill Crider, award-winning author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series
“I read as a writer and believe me, an entire class could be profitably taught using just this novel...one of the best, most interesting, best-paced and plotted novels I’ve read in a long, long time.”
—Les Edgerton, author of BOMB, The Bitch, and the bestselling writing craft book Hooked
“A first-rate, fly-through-the-pages freakshow that left me longing for a bit longer with Matthew Louis’s hardboiled heroes.”
—Tony Black, author of His Father’s Son and The Last Tiger
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