Lee Goldberg has written an essay for the CrimeReads website about how his love for Ralph Dennis’ incredible Hardman series of crime novels led to him co-founding Brash Books. Here’s an excerpt:
Jim Hardman is in his 40s, a pudgy, balding ex-cop with a steady girlfriend…who does odd jobs with his drinking buddy Hump Evans, a black ex-NFL player who supports his playboy lifestyle by hiring himself out as muscle. They are functioning alcoholics, drinking booze morning, noon and night as if its mineral water, doing whatever they have to do, short of murder or bank robbery, to make a living in the seamy underworld of 1970s Atlanta, as equal partners and, although it remains unspoken, close friends.
This wasn’t men’s action-adventure fiction. This was straight-up, hardboiled crime fiction, written in a tight, evocative voice. And it was wonderful.
…and I wished there was something I could do about it…and some way I could get Hardman out to wider audience.
And then it hit me—maybe I could.
Check out this essay to learn about this great series and the story behind how our publishing company was born.
