DOWN THE BARREL OF A GUN

DOWN THE BARREL OF A GUN
A True Story of Survival

It was supposed to be an ordinary Friday.

Wendell Hawkins had breakfast with his wife and son, ran his usual rounds for his two small businesses, and headed out into the ice-covered streets of Dallas to open up the club where he worked nights. Four blocks from his own front door, a car came sliding out of the darkness - and what looked like a simple fender-bender became a gun pressed to his head.

"Give me your car keys and your wallet."

What followed was a life-or-death standoff on an empty, icy road: two armed men, a demand to get in the trunk of his own car, and a split-second decision that would determine whether Wendell walked away - or didn't. His refusal, his narrow escape, and the manhunt that followed expose a night of violence that didn't end with him. The same two men went on to rob and shoot another victim before the night was through.

Told in Wendell Hawkins's own voice, Down the Barrel of a Gun is a gripping, dialogue-driven true crime memoir about the seconds that separate survival from tragedy - and the strange calm that can settle over a person staring down the barrel of a gun.

A true story of one ordinary night, one impossible choice, and the will to make it home.