Fools, Fortune, and the Fire Engineer's Handbook

Do good deeds ever go unpunished? Fools, Fortune, and the Fire Engineer's Handbook is the tale of two inept firefighters who fake the circumstances of a friend's death in order to recover a $500,000 federal Line of Duty Death benefit for a poor (and supposedly) grieving widow. Meet Fire Engineer Sean Sullivan, a surly oversized gorilla with a short temper, a big mouth, and a penchant for blackmail. He also happens to suffer from a rather unfortunate malady- Pyrophobia, an all consuming fear of fire. In fact, he's sworn off the stuff completely. After all, in less than 5 billion years, our solar system's sun goes supernova and mother earth itself is consumed. So, given the inevitable outcome of things--what would be the point? He likes the citizens who inhabit his troubled mid-western city even less; morbidly obese prostitutes, roaming street gangs of old women in ridiculous red hats, his irritating coworkers... But when Captain Dutch Harris suddenly dies just hours before shift, Sullivan hatches a desperate plan that sets an unseen chain of events in motion. Soon, Sullivan and his crew of reluctant accomplices find themselves dodging homicidal hippies, peeping toms, and a horde of hairy-knuckled transvestites all the while being relentlessly pursued by a geriatric dominatrix as the they struggle to save their jobs, stay out of jail, and with a bit of luck not kill each other along the way. The Fire Engineer's Handbook is a light-hearted farcical tale about greed, corruption, and ultimate redemption in the same dark humor genre as Dave Barry's Big Trouble blended with the scientifically accurate styling of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club with a touch of Bill Shakespeare thrown in for good measure.