Well into his forties, Derrick Rowe finds himself chasing stray women and stealing cash from the bookstore he manages. Having decided it’s time to stop spinning his wheels, he’s recently turned to robbing banks. Meanwhile, he bails his friend Jack Lofton out of jail, a burly fellow in an alcoholic free-fall of his own. Rowe soon enlists both Lofton and a tough young clerk at the bookstore in another heist, setting the stage for an armed bank robbery, a drive-by shooting, and further complications for all. Told from different perspectives in Clark’s signature clear, concise prose, Hair-Trigger follows the various trails and exploits that lead to a violent climax involving Rowe, Lofton, the police, and several gangsters.
It is with great sadness that we announce the unexpected passing of Trevor Clark on April 4, 2019. Trevor was not only a capable and courageous writer, but a fascinating person. As a writer, he was seemingly from another, more classical time, and didn't really fit into the strict definitions of what is supposed to define one today. That is one reason why we chose to publish so many of his books. His characters were always very real and very raw, and one didn't have to ponder very long the question of how much of himself Trevor injected into them. It was our pleasure (and, we felt, something of our duty), to present his writing to the world. With so much in letters being driven by political correctness these days and the need at whatever cost to not offend, his writing stood out boldly, as much the hammer as the nail. We loved him for that; he was unabashedly exactly who he presented himself as, and that will always have value in this world, no matter the direction the political or cultural winds are blowing at the time.
Among other things, Trevor Clark worked as an oilrig roughneck, editor, portrait photographer, bookstore manager, and home entertainment coordinator for a TV movie production company in London, where he lived for a number of years. He was the author of numerous works of fiction including Damaged at Daybreak, Hair-Trigger, Dragging the River, Love on the Killing Floor and Escape and other Stories, and his photographs appeared in Designs of Darkness: Interviews With Detective Novelists, (Bowling Green University Popular Press,) and Interviews With Contemporary Novelists (Macmillan/ St. Martin’s Press,) both by Diana Cooper-Clark, as well as Ross Macdonald: A Biography, by Tom Nolan, (Scribner’s,) NOW, and the Globe And Mail. He last resided in Montreal.
Trevor's last work of fiction, Seven Floors Down, is now available in bookstores and online.
