STARTING OVER excerpt

STARTING OVER is an action/thriller about a hitman who vows to never kill again and gets assigned a target who wants to die.

An established Mexican Mafia group gets ripped off and massacred by a Russian outfit trying to establish itself on the violent shores of San Diego. The Mexican boss goes to Smith’s Consultants to hire a hitman to kill the Russian boss. Hank is on the job. He raids the Russian boss’s warehouse, stabs him in the neck and leaves his knife (his signature), then heads out to pick up an engagement ring to propose to his long-time girlfriend. When Hank comes home, though, he finds his girlfriend murdered with his own knife. Hank feels like it is his fault so he vows to never kill again.

Hank goes to his boss, Mr. Smith, to negotiate the terms of his retirement. Hank has to do three more jobs. On the first one, Hank uses a connection in the CIA to help create a new identity for his target and helps him disappear. One of Smith’s associates, however, was watching Hank and becomes suspicious as to whether Hank is actually killing or not so they start a new policy to ensure that their operatives are actually killing the targets. New policy in mind, Hank sets out on his second job which is to kill a loathsome human being that happens to be connected to the Russians that killed Hank’s girlfriend. Hank, in a moment of weakness, almost kills this target, but saves his life. Mr. Smith is pretty confident Hank is not doing his job, so, for his third and final job, they assign him a trainee.

This final target is Normand Jasper, the CEO of Jasper Marketing and Design who, despite his affluence and great family life, is depressed and wants to kill himself. In fear of making his company look weak and burdening his family with the weight of a suicide, he hires someone to murder him... Mr. Smith assigns Hank. Hank however won’t kill him or let him kill himself. Hank and Normand make a run for Hawaii to escape the reaches of Smith’s hitmen and, on the way, Normand learns the value of family and Hank learns how to connect with people again.