Stagger Bay by Pearce Hansen

Markus, Stagger Bay’s protagonist, is a man who overcame a horrendous childhood and criminal youth to go straight and raise a family. His violent past makes him an easy fall guy to frame for a gruesome mass murder and he’s sentenced to life without parole, losing his family in the process.

Exonerated and freed on DNA evidence after seven years, Markus is shortly thrust into a bloody do-or-die fracas during an elementary school hostage situation, becoming an overnight hero. Everyone wants in on the media feeding frenzy; to his dismay, paparazzi and news crews hound him wherever he goes. Unfortunately they’re not the only ones stalking him.

Can Markus find the path back into his estranged son’s heart? What’s Markus supposed to do, when he discovers fifteen minutes of fame is the worst thing that could ever happen to him? What can he do, now that his town is hunting ground to serial killers and rogue cops working together – and the shadowy force behind them is turning its cold, deadly eye straight at him?

Stagger Bay is a battle of wills, where every moral choice seems only to increase the body count. It’s in the tradition of Paul Cain’s break-neck-paced Fast One, or Geoffrey Household’s feral man-against-the-world Rogue Male. Stagger Bay has been blurbed by Ken Bruen, Jason Starr and Anthony Neil Smith, and should appeal to readers looking for a fast paced, hyper-violent thriller.

STAGGER BAY is available from Amazon.

*****

Ken Bruen (author of Blitz starring Jason Statham; and of London Boulevard, soon to be a major motion picture): “Stagger Bay proves what noir purists have known for a long time: Pearce Hansen is the new Prince of Noir. For years he’s been turning out stunning nuggets of sheer black gold, and now he finally comes into his ascendancy with this mesmerizing novel.

“Imagine James Ellroy coupled with George R. R. Martin and overseen by Charles Willeford. But PH really needs no comparison to any other writer; he’s created his own compelling dark universe that ratchets up noir to an astonishing level.”

Jason Starr (bestselling author of The Pack and The Follower): “Pearce Hansen is the real deal, the Edward Bunker of our generation. Stagger Bay is a searing, powerful, heartbreaking novel, and an important contribution to contemporary crime fiction literature.”

Anthony Neil Smith (Editor of Plots with Guns!, Associate Editor of the Mississippi Review, and author of All the Young Warriors): “Pearce is a wild man, and demands your attention. Hansen is definitely one of the gonzo crowd and deserves a stage with a loud amplifier and some bright lights.”

*****

Pearce Hansen is an East Bay native who writes about what he knows: the streets of Oakland and her sister cities where he grew up. His work inspired by his experiences on those crazy blocks, Pearce has been writing 16 years and published over 80 times including four anthology inclusions; Street Raised is the first of his three novels to date. Pearce currently resides up on the Lost Coast behind the Redwood Curtain, empty nesting it with his wife and their spoiled fat Egyptian Mau cat.

Author Pearce Hansen grew up on the streets of the East Bay. Inspired by the roller coaster experiences of a misspent youth, he’s been writing for 16 years with over 80 publications, and three Kindle books currently available at Amazon. His first novel Street Raised was blurbed by Joe Lansdale, Eddie Muller and Laird Barron, and received a favorable review in the SF Chronicle.