EVERY DAY ABOVE GROUND - Softcover

A favor for a dying ex-con turns into a violent battle against a mysterious enemy for Van Shaw in this emotionally powerful and gritty thriller from the award-winning author of Past Crimes and Hard Cold Winter

When an old acquaintance of Van Shaw’s late grandfather—a terminally ill ex-con—shows up in Seattle, he offers the broke veteran a moneymaking opportunity that sounds like a thief’s dream: an easy fortune in gold, abandoned and nearly forgotten after its original owner died. For the ex-con, the gold is a legacy to ensure his preteen daughter’s future. For Van, the cash means funds to rebuild his destroyed family home and time to find legitimate work.

The grandson of a career thief who taught him all the tricks of his trade, Van knows that nothing is ever quite as easy as it seems. The safe holding the fortune turns out to be a trap—deadly bait set by a malevolent player armed with tremendous resources, an army of hunters, and a lifetime of hatred. Now Shaw’s partner is in the clutches of this shadowy mastermind, and the former Army Ranger may be his next prey. When the ex-con’s innocent daughter is threatened too, Van exploits the criminal skills and network from his questionable past to keep the young girl from harm.

To discover who has them in the crosshairs, Shaw must first find the hunters’ real prey. The quest leads him from an underground bare-knuckle fighting ring—which may be fronting a darker kind of business—to a massive pop-culture convention where Van plays a dangerous game with foes on every side.

For Van Shaw, every day above ground is a good day, and all the better if he can stay on the right side of the law, even though crime is his gift . . . and in his blood. If he survives the coming storm, he’ll have to decide what he wants—and whether he can exist as an outlaw without sacrificing his honor.

In his acclaimed Van Shaw novels, Glen Erik Hamilton creates crime fiction with emotional intensity; complex, flawed, and very real characters; gritty action; and palpable atmosphere—the elements that have earned him a slew of awards and that bolster his growing reputation as one of the rising stars in modern noir.

A native of Seattle, Glen Erik Hamilton grew up aboard a sailboat, and spent his youth finding trouble around the marinas and commercial docks and islands of the Pacific Northwest. He now lives in Burbank, California, with his family, punctuated by frequent visits to his hometown to soak up the rain.