Beggar's Bargain

BEGGAR'S BARGAINA Hard-Edged Noir Thriller About Debt, Guilt, and the Ghosts That Hunt You BackWhen you've got nothing left to lose, danger starts looking like opportunity. Mercer Sample is a broken man limping through the backroads of Arkansas with a failing diesel truck, a failing bank account, and a past he'd give anything to outrun. A disgraced Army CID investigator, Mercer knows trouble the way a bloodhound knows scent - and it always finds him first.
His luck hits bottom in a dying roadside diner on Highway 67, where the coffee is burnt, the pie is older than the air conditioner, and the sheriff walks in carrying a job offer wrapped in danger. A rich widow, a touring charity operation, and boxes of donation cash that move from megachurch to convention center across the South. She wants a driver. A protector. A man who spots the knife before it clears the pocket.
She calls him capable. Mercer knows that's code for bullet sponge. But when the widow turns out to be Jenny Jackson, the wife of Major Lucius Jackson - a man whose death haunts Mercer's nightmares - the past slams into the present with the force of a mortar round. And what should be a simple protection gig spirals into a lethal maze of lies, hero worship, weaponized grief, and buried military secrets someone will kill to preserve.
Now Mercer isn't just guarding a client. He's guarding the truth - the kind that burns reputations, ends careers, and draws predators out of the shadows. And the body count is warming up. Pull up a booth, pour a burnt cup of diner coffee, and ride shotgun as Mercer Sample steps into a job that will either save him. or finish what war started. Your next favorite noir thriller is only one click away.