Gas, Food, Lodging

Former major league baseball player Ryan "Dirt" Simms is the reluctant hero in this explosive new series from west coast artist and author Michael Payne. "I turn 30 this year, and I'm not dealing with it very well. I started not dealing with it well when I was 26, but some things you can't rush into." In Gas, Food, Lodging, the widow of an old friend finds Simms drinking away a failed career at his Calgary bar and asks for help. Nervous about returning to Vancouver because of the friendships and bridges he's burned over the years, Simms agrees to go home, but isn't sure what he is going to find. And it doesn't take long for him to realize he is in over his head-professionally and personally. In a matter of days, Simms starts a war with British Columbia's most violent motorcycle gang, uncovers an international money laundering operation, and proves that the death of a decorated Vancouver police officer was no accident. And he runs into an old girl-friend along the way. As Simms gets closer and closer to something he doesn't understand, violent murders, car bombs and shootings send the city of Vancouver into a panic. "The car was sixty yards away. Far enough away that I could hit it easily by throwing rocks, but probably not so easily by shooting bullets. But that certainly didn't mean whoever was in the car couldn't and wouldn't shoot me like they had the others. Maybe they'll throw rocks back and it will be a fair fight." Over the course of an explosive few weeks, Simms learns that you can go home again if you've left behind good friends and, somewhere along the way, you learn to trust, and maybe even like, yourself again. Fans of Robert B. Parker's Spenser and Robert Crais' Elvis Cole will enjoy making a new friend in Ryan Simms.