Chef Turned Author Launches New Thriller Series
Thomas Curran is a friend of mine, and he's the kind of person who is always creative and always looking for a new challenge. He spent three decades as a chef before he decided to walk across the country. Ocean to ocean. 3,235 miles, 231 days, 12 states, all to raise money for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation. That story is part of why I featured him in my book, "Born in OC: The Artists, Entrepreneurs, and Visionaries of Orange County, California."
His new book, "Dime Store Hitman," comes out Aug. 31. It's the first in a planned trilogy, and the premise fits him: unexpected, and a lot of fun.
Meet Eddie "The Cowboy" DelDuco. No tuxedo. No silencer. Just a closet full of clearance-aisle weapons and a rotating stack of burner phones. He kills people the way some guy might unclog your sink: cheap, fast, and with whatever's on hand.
Then an influencer named Jessica Starling tracks down "the killer for hire" online and asks what it would cost to disappear her boyfriend. Eddie's reply: "Depends. Does disappear mean dead or relocated to Omaha?" She doesn't blink. She hires him. And just like that, Eddie becomes the accidental celebrity behind a thousand hashtags.
What follows is messy in the best way. A cryo-spa owner has a meltdown. A podcaster who's had one too many chases the story for clicks. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Thomas finds a way to make Los Angeles' obsession with being seen genuinely, darkly funny.
This is his second novel. His first, "Death, Discovery and Carne Asada," became an Amazon bestseller, so he's proven he can hold a reader's attention.
You can grab "Dime Store Hitman" in paperback ($14.99), hardcover ($24.99), or ebook ($5.99), with the audiobook landing Oct. 13. Book two is already scheduled for early 2027.
"Dime Store Hitman" is available now on Amazon and wherever books are sold, with the audiobook dropping Oct. 13. Go grab a copy.
