The Meanest of Times

by Matthew Louis

A blistering, fearless, and morally complex thriller. The neo-pulp answer to Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and Stephen Hunter's Dirty White Boys.

Reed Hubbard is a cage fighter with more bruises than wins. But when his desperate attempt to stop a brutal murder leaves him face-to-face with the killer, he becomes the prime target in a war he didn’t know existed. He is hunted by a crew of violent ideologues, a corrupt cop, and a brilliant sociopath orchestrating a bloody campaign to purge the city of a powerful drug cartel.

Abducted and framed for the very crime he tried to prevent, Reed is given a terrifying ultimatum: prove his loyalty by becoming an assassin, or his life is forfeit. Caught between two savage forces and with nowhere to run, Reed must descend into a world of calculated violence and moral compromise, discovering that in the meanest of times, the only difference between a hero and a monster is who gets to tell the story.

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.”