Hired Man — Mark Beyer

What would you do if a dying stranger begged you to save his daughter and then paid you seven figures to do it?

When suburban dad Terry Holbrook stops to help the quickly dying driver of an icy car wreck on a dark, lonely country road, he can t believe the bloody check thrust into his hands is worth the paper it's printed on. Yet, in no time, Terry and his family are swept into a dangerous vortex of powerful Detroit drug dealers, vicious blackmailers, homicidal white supremacists and the dead man's vengeful family.

Enter Pearce Butler, a 'ghost' who operates both inside and outside the law. But is his true motive to mete out justice? Or simply to get to the money first?

From word one, Hired Man speeds like a bullet train through ever-tightening coils of suspense toward a climax as riveting as any in crime fiction.