At thirty-five, Tommy Cochrane is a washed-up boxer who missed out on a shot at the title and has hung up his gloves for good after he's diagnosed with an aneurysm. Down on his luck, he and T-Bone Pike, his friend and former sparring partner, head to Toronto on a quest for the $5000 Tommy desperately needs to buy back his grandfather's farm.

Tommy and T-Bone encounter a city full of gamblers and old memories: Fat Ollie, who runs the weekly poker game on Queen Street; Herm Bell, a sharp kid on a run of bad luck; Tony Broad, a small-time hood with big-time ambitions; and Lee Charles, a sharp-witted and cynical torch singer who happens to be Tommy's ex-girlfriend. The five grand ultimately becomes available to a number of these people in a number of ways—all at great risk to Tommy and T-Bone.

Brad Smith, writer born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. After high school, he worked for the signal department of the Canadian National Railway for three years, and then got a chance to work on a rail project in South Africa. Upon returning from Africa, Smith worked all over the place - Alberta, British Columbia, Texas - at a variety of jobs. Farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and so on. He became a carpenter and built custom homes in Canada. He still works as a carpenter when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. His books have been published by Penguin Canada, Doubleday Canada, Simon & Schuster Canada and his forthcoming novel will be published by At Bay Press.

Brad Smith's profile page