Showing Sideswipe by Charles Willeford

In a hot Florida summer, Sergeant Hoke Moseley's life is going to hell: his ex-wife just remarried, his teenage daughters want to quit school and his beat partner is eight months pregnant - and living in his house. A break seems long overdue, so Hoke decides to bail out, give up police work and watch the ocean roll.

But things don't always work out. A handsome, cowboy-hatted psychopath is planning another armed robbery - one that will draw a retiree into a life of crime and leave half-a-dozen bystanders dead. It's a case right up Hoke's alley: weird enough to catch his attention, personal enough to make him mad, and twisted enough to make Hoke forget he no longer wants to be a cop.