Hard Lines: A Novel

By Daniel E Ouellette

Ray Kessler has run his construction company outside Casa Grande, Arizona, for twenty-six years, and he has spent thirty-five of them looking at the floor. Then a young man shows up at the bottom of his trailer steps at 6:40 in the morning; nineteen days out of Florence prison, turned away by eleven employers, and out of time.

Eli Dawson learned the hard way that the most dangerous thing in any room is what you let your face do. He asks for nothing but work. What he finds is a man who looks at him like he might be worth something, and who would cut off his own hand before he let a paycheck come with strings.

Between them stand twenty-nine years, a power neither man will abuse, and a line Ray swore he would never cross. Out in the Arizona desert, where the monsoon comes in like a freight train, some lines are meant to hold, and some were always meant to be crossed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HNFDZM5Z
• ISBN13: 9798163206681
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"