In his day job, Dan Simmons writes brilliant speculative fiction, with near-perfect novels such as Ilium and Hyperion. But at night, he burns the midnight flame and cranks out greasy detective novels. Joe Kurtz is Simmons' Spenser, and Buffalo is his Boston. I can't quite fit in Hawk to this analogy, but if you've ever read any Robert B. Parker, you've already got the idea. The Joe Kurtz novels are "lightweight" in the same sense as Parker's, but a bit more bloody. There are no mindblowing ideas here, just gritty suspense, tense shootouts, and a handful of doublecrosses.

Hard as Nails may be the weakest of the Joe Kurtz novels — the twist ending isn't completely satisfying, and the Artful Dodger character is a little too surreal — but it's still ripping good entertainment. Simmons has never written a dull story, and his prose flows so well that it's easy to lose yourself in it for hours. This novel won't be nominated for any awards, but you could do a lot worse on a winter afternoon.