Carol Lea Benjamin did an outstanding job portraying life on the streets and the contrast between the very poor and the super wealthy showed immense insight, making this a very meaningful book.

The Hard Way is one of the best mysteries I have read. I enjoyed the complexity of it and was not able to figure out until the very end who the murderer was - the true mark of a great mystery!

I highly recommend The Hard Way to others and I look forward to reading many more of this author's books.

Rachel Alexander is a Private Investigator in New York City. She lives with her dog and constant companion, a pitbull, named Dashiell (called Dash for short).

Eleanor Redstone hires Rachel to find out who murdered her father and why. Gardner Redstone was on his way home from work when he was pushed onto the subway tracks as a train came barreling into the station. According to the witnessess it was a homeless man who pushed Gardner Redstone to his death.

With only a few vague clues to guide her, Rachel decides to go undercover as a homeless woman, Eunice. She is looking for a homeless man who is taller than average and who may or may not have a tattoo on his hand.

On the streets she meets Eddie, a soldier back from Iraq who isn't even sure of his name. Rachel gets Eddie's fingerprints and has a detective run them. She doesn't know if telling Eddie what she's found out about him will help him or hurt him.

Rachel continues questioning the witnessess on the platform the day Gardner Redstone was pushed to his death and discovers things are just not adding up and things may not have happened the way she (and the police) orginally thought they had.

She needs to find out more about Gardner Redstone, how he ran his business and what enemies he may have made in the process. So Rachel goes undercover at GR Leather to learn about Gardner Redstone's business and the employees who worked for him.

Meanwhile she has lost track of Eddie, whom she has grown fond of and concerned about. So she's looking for Eddie while continuing to re-question all the witnesses, trying to figure out who had a motive to kill Gardner Redstone.