Premise: Hard Landing is a 2004 thriller novel by British author Stephen Leather. Published in 2004 by Hodder & Stoughton, it is the first book in the Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series. "Hard Landing" is an international bestseller and is available in ebook and paperback.
Hypothesis:  Hard Landing is the first book in the Dan 'Spider' Shepherd series that was released before the second decade of the twenty-first century.