The Hardest Thing

Killing is easy. Love is... The Hardest Thing

James Lear does Lee Child

Dan Stagg is an ex-military man who fell foul of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Dan is in his late 30s, tall, muscular, balding, dark hair (what's left of it). He had a successful career in the US Army and rose to the rank of Major, with active service in the first Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan. He received extensive combat training and, later in his career, trained others. In 2008 he had a relationship with a younger male soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of his lover's death, Dan was busted by the military authorities when he refused to keep quiet about the nature of the relationship. Since 2009 he's been back in civilian life, and is finding it very hard to adjust. Like Jack Reacher, Lee Child's protagonist, Dan is prone to violence, always upholding what he views as justice. He has few personal ties, nearly no belongings, tries to live under the radar.

When we meet Dan, he's working as a security guard at a nightclub in Boston. His life seems to be going nowhere ? he's not earning much money, he has no status, and he's been in trouble with the police a couple of times when he's got into fights with drunk patrons. He's had a few sexual affairs with people he's met through the club, but they've gone nowhere. Once or twice he's been offered money, and when he's been particularly broke he's accepted it ? but that's a road he doesn't want to go down.

Dan gets fired after a fight with some particularly obnoxious guys waiting to get into the bar. The incident is so messy it makes the newspapers. He's jobless, living in a crappy room in Harlem, broke, no one is going to hire him.
Dan's offered a great deal of money to do a protection job for the young male "secretary" of a powerful real estate developer. Dan is told the young man has been threatened with kidnapping. The young man in question is vain, shallow and, Dan is forced to admit, very attractive ? and it's quite clear that his idea of ?protection' includes sex. But Dan quickly realizes that something strange is going on: he's being used as a shield for a much more sinister operation, and is forced to choose between the easy money and sex that his new job offers him, and living up to the ideals of service and duty that he embodied in the Army.

Why should he do the right thing ? particularly when the army betrayed him? Dan finds himself playing a dangerous double game which will take all his combat skill and military training to survive.

The Hardest Thing is a sexy gay mystery as only James Lear can write it: filled with lots of gay sexual encounters, romance, sweat, violence and conspiracy.