Patrick Hoffman

Patrick Hoffman burst onto the crime fiction scene with The White Van , a bank heist thriller set in the back streets of San Francisco and a finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. Now he returns with his second novel, Every Man a Menace , the inside story of a ruthless ecstasy-smuggling ring. San Francisco is about to receive the biggest delivery of MDMA to hit the West Coast in years. Raymond Gaspar, just out of prison, is sent to the city to check in on the increasingly erratic dealer expected to take care of distribution. In Miami, the man responsible for getting the drugs across the Pacific has just met the girl of his dreams—a woman who can't seem to keep her story straight. And thousands of miles away in Bangkok, someone farther up the supply chain is about to make a phone call that will put all their lives at risk. Stretching from the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia to the Golden Gate of San Francisco, Every Man a Menace offers an unflinching account of the making, moving, and selling of the drug known as Molly—pure happiness sold by the brick, brought to market by bloodshed and betrayal.

Bunny Simpson is at his usual post behind the counter at a Denver cigarette store when his volatile friend Jerry presents an opportunity: 500 dollars to beat a guy up. Jerry has been dealing steroids to Helen, a lawyer, who is getting rapidly stronger just as she gets more erratic, vengeful towards her cheating ex-husband who she asks Jerry to attack. Bunny’s relatively solid conscience isn’t enough to stop him from biting -- Ray, his beloved quasi-uncle, is behind on rent for the apartment they share, and Bunny will do anything to bail him out. And it’s a small favor; just friends helping friends. Right? Not quite. When Bunny and Jerry arrested, Bunny finds himself faced with a choice: Go to jail for years, or take a plea deal to go undercover in a white nationalist group under federal investigation. Bunny obliges, and soon he finds himself witness to a new world of startling violence, toxic masculinity, and warped conceptions of discipline, religion, and patriotism. If these men discover that he’s a snitch, they’ll kill him without blinking. His life is at stake, but so is his freedom. Soon Bunny is embroiled in a criminal enterprise far darker than he could’ve imagined -- a wasp’s nest with eyes on him from all sides -- and he needs to penetrate it at its center. Patrick Hoffman, critically acclaimed author of Every Man a Menace and Clean Hands, is at his brilliant best in these pages. A wholly unique portrait of friendship, extremism, and the dual power of technology and money, Friends Helping Friends is an electrifying thriller from a veritable talent.