Sharpe Decline: A Hammer & Sharpe Noir Mystery Thriller Prequel Novelette

by David E. Feldman

Before Sam Sharpe became a private investigator, he was a drunk with a camera and a haunted past. He could live with the drinking. He could even live with the aimless surveillance gigs for the feds. What he couldn’t live with was injustice—and when a confessed child killer walks free on a technicality, Sam Sharpe’s fragile grip on morality snaps.

As Sharpe spirals into obsession, chasing a murderer the system refused to hold, he crosses a line he can’t uncross. The fallout sends him into darker territory a final descent into heroin, memory, and the unforgiving mirror of guilt.

Taut, gritty, and deeply human, Sharpe Decline is the raw origin story of one of noir fiction’s most compelling antiheroes. Fans of James Sallis’ Lew Griffin or Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder will find much to admire in this stark and unforgettable tale of justice gone sideways.

29 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 11, 2025

About the author

David E. Feldman has written 8 books of his own and has ghostwritten twelve others.

His books include: Not Today-Dora Ellison Mystery Book 1; A Gathering Storm-Dora Ellison Mystery Book 2; A Sickening Storm-Dora Ellison Mystery Book 3; A Biological Storm-Dora Ellison Mystery Book 4; A Special Storm-Dora Ellison Mystery Book 5; Pilgrimage from Darkness Nuremberg to Jerusalem; Bad Blood, a Long Island Mystery; Born of War: Based on a True Story of American Chinese Friendship; How to Be Happily Married.

David's film, Everyone Deserves a Decent Life (directed, produced) won the Alfred Fortunoff Humanitarian Film Award at the Long Island Film Expo, 2014.

His film, Let Me Out! (Written, directed, produced) won Best Psychological Thriller at the 2009 New York International Film Festival.

His play, Love Lives On, was a winner of the inaugural Artists In Partnership Inaugural Playwriting Contest. He has also been the owner of eFace Media (eface.com) since 1989.