Every Day Above Ground
A Van Shaw Novel
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
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.
It sounds like a thief’s dream to Van Shaw: A terminally ill ex-con tells him of an easy fortune in gold, abandoned and nearly forgotten after its original owner died in prison. For the dying man, the money is a legacy to ensure his preteen daughter’s future. For Van, the gold is cash he desperately needs to rebuild his destroyed family home.
The grandson of a career criminal who taught him all the tricks of his trade, Van suspects that nothing is ever that easy. Sure enough, the safe holding the fortune is a trap—set by a mysterious player armed with tremendous resources and a lifetime of hatred. Now, Shaw’s partner is in the clutches of the hunters, and the former army ranger may be their next prey. But when the ex-con’s innocent daughter is threatened too, Van’s own hard childhood means he can’t let her come to harm.
To discover who has them in the cross hairs, Shaw must seek out the hunters’ real prey. His quest leads him from an underground bare-knuckle fighting ring, which may be fronting a darker purpose, to a massive pop-culture convention, where Van and his allies, Hollis and Corcoran, play a dangerous game with foes on every side. It also introduces Van to a brash and beautiful aspiring journalist who poses a whole different kind of personal risk.
For years, Van Shaw has tried to live every day above ground, 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 live as an outlaw without sacrificing his honor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hamilton's outstanding third Van Shaw novel (after 2016's Hard Cold Winter) fulfills the promise of the earlier entries. Shaw, a former Army ranger, is trying to stay on the right side of the law as he struggles to make ends meet with whatever part-time work he can get. He hopes that he can manage to rebuild the Seattle home he recently inherited from his thief grandfather, Donovan "Dono" Shaw, so when Mickey O'Hasson, an old criminal colleague of Dono's, offers him a part of a score, Shaw is naturally tempted. Mickey has just been released from prison, where he met an inmate who claimed to have worked for Karl Ekby, the most powerful heroin dealer in L.A., and invested his proceeds in gold, which he stored in a safe in the floor of his Seattle office. Shaw agrees to help Mickey break into the safe, but the burglary goes south, leaving Shaw scrambling to find out why they were apparently set up. The suspenseful, fast-moving plot is a good match for the empathetic, nuanced lead.
