Double Dead

by Gary Hardwick

When Detroit mayor Harris Yancy is murdered by two masked gunmen while enjoying an evening with his call-girl mistress, prosecutor Jesse King discovers that his own independent investigation into the crime has brought him into conflict with some powerful and ruthless enemies. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

Published August 1, 1997

About the author

Gary Hardwick is a television and screenwriter, film director and novelist.

Gary is the writer/director of the hit film The Brothers, starring Morris Chestnut, Shemar Moore and DL Hughley, and Deliver Us From Eva starring Gabrielle Union and Megan Good.

He was the production writer for the hit film Bring It On, The Perfect Match for Queen Latifah’s Flava Unit and Lionsgate Films and 2021’s, Christmas Unwrapped starring Amber Stevens for Lifetime Entertainment.

In 2022, Amazon Filmed Entertainment purchased Gary’s spec script, the HBCU set film, Stand Battle along with AGC Studios.

Gary’s first novel, Cold Medina, was a commercial and critical smash. His second novel, Double Dead was bought by Warner Brothers. His fourth novel, Color Of Justice was optioned by Universal Films for rapper Eminem. His seventh novel, the spy thriller, The Executioner’s Game was purchased by Sony Pictures as a starring vehicle for Academy Award winning actor, Jamie Foxx.

Gary’s HardBooks imprint publishes thrillers and science fiction novels under his pseudonym, a.a. clifford, whose titles include SexLife, Escape To Sex, The Enkntatum, Kifo and Kifo x Moto.

Gary has currently completed the sci fi novels, 4 and 5 under his science. They will be published in 2023 as part of his Numbers Trilogy.

Reviews

[Byron Washington · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second Gary Hardwick book and I'm thoroughly impressed. He has officially become one of my favorite authors. His writing compares favorably to Connelly, Sandford, Patterson, Child and Mosley, my other favorites. Don't hesitate to try his works of fiction.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little bit surprised, and extremely impressed, that this book turned out to be as good as it is. As far as I know, this was Gary Hardwick's very first book, and usually for novels like this one (for fiction generally, to some extent) the author is still trying to get his or her writing together when they first obtain a publishing deal. I have no idea if this is true of the present author of course, but often authors tend to judge their initial books more harshly than necessary as well, especially when their subsequent work is better received and as they become more successful. For example, one of my most prized possessions is a copy of a novel called 'The Oklahoma Punk' (a.k.a. 'Red Highway'), which was the first published book by another well-known author of mystery/detective/police procedural novels often set in and around Detroit, Loren D. Estleman. I have no idea how Mr. Estleman views that book now, but when I spoke to him about it when I was a teenager, more than 40 years ago, he seemed somewhat embarrassed by it and absolutely hated the title, which had been forced on him at the time by the original publisher (that's why it was called 'Red Highway', the author's original title, when it was re-published several years later). I thought at the time of that conversation, and still think after all these years, that it was a perfectly good book and that Mr. Estleman was being too hard on himself. Mr. Hardwick, like Mr. Estleman, has every reason to be proud of his first book. While both men certainly became more polished & self-assured as writers after their respective first novels were published, this was merely a matter of style in both cases- the talent was already there right from the beginning. I already knew Gary Hardwick could write (I had found one of his later works in the "free box" at King Books many years ago, and thought it was quite good), but I wasn't expecting much from this book specifically because I knew it was the first one; I was pleasantly surprised by how good it turned out to be.

One of the nice things about this particular form of "genre fiction" is that the books are often related to one another (and often share protagonists and/or subsidiary characters), whether they are written specifically to be a series or not. This often makes it particularly rewarding to read all the books in order. Because I had enjoyed the book I got from the "free box" all those years ago, I decided to do exactly that in this case, and am really looking forward to reading this author's other books. The icing on the cake is that, aside from the aforementioned Mr. Estleman (who as far as I know never actually lived in either the city or the suburbs, though he did work as a newspaper reporter here), and Elmore Leonard (who lived in the city as a child & young man, but moved to the suburbs as soon as he became a published novelist), there have been very few writers of any description who have chosen to set their books in my beloved home city of Detroit. Mr. Hardwick, on the other hand, not only makes it clear that he knows the city quite well both geographically and culturally, but in fact has several of his characters dining at restaurants (Mario's & Traffic Jam) in my old neighbourhood, literally right down the street from where my wife and I lived the year this book was released (the "ABC Building" on the corner of Second & Prentis)...

[D.K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luther Green is a government assassin working for an agency known as E-1. Luther is called off his current mission from somewhere overseas and brought back to America. The director of E-1 personally assigns him to a new assignment--find and kill the man who trained Luther as an agent, Alex Deaver.

Although Luther accepts the task, he finds that the director's behavior and the assignment odd. Deaver leads Luther on a cat and mouse chase that takes the reluctant assassin back to hometown, Detroit. It places Luther at a disadvantage because he has family and friends living in the city. Deaver's knows this and is willing to place Luther's family in the line of fire if he has to.

Deaver's leaves clues for Luther to discover while they play their Executioner's Game. And soon Luther finds that everything at E-1 is not what it appears to be.

Gary Hardwick's 'The Executioner's Game' is an exciting, fast-pace read, with interesting characters and a government assassin with a style all his own. Well worth the read.

[Susan Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

District Attorney Jesse King is caught in the politics of the city of Detroit. It's tolerable until he catches the case of the murder of the Mayor. His boss is sure that Mrs. Mayor did it. Jesse is pretty sure that isn't true but it's fighting an uphill battle. Pretty soon he has to cross over the legal line to get to the truth and save his own skin. This is another excellent story by Hardwick.

[Byron Washington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellence!!

[Chantel]

DNF This was actually a re-read, but I didn't finish because this time around it seemed slow and bland.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a very good crime/thriller. Kind of preachy too with Mr. Hardwick’s political bias.