From Ben H. Winters, author of the Last Policeman trilogy, The Quiet Boy, and the Audible Originals Q&A and Self Help, comes a new crime story—a darkly comedic thriller, a wicked satire of our contemporary digital lives, and a loving homage to Patricia Highsmith’s iconic Strangers on a Train. Meet Harry, aspiring tech entrepreneur. He’s a would-be Steve Jobs trapped in a cubicle gig at an angel investor firm, so close and yet so far from his dreams. His marriage is foundering, his career is stalled out, and all he wants is to create an app like Uber, or Tinder, something to make real change in the world, and change his own life forever. Now meet Peter, a deeply troubled computer genius who lives in a basement apartment, chugging red wine, nursing old grudges and writing code. When Harry meets Peter, it’s both of their lives that will change, when they invent an app for murder: you post your desired target, I post mine, and if we make a match we both carry out the other’s killing. Stranger is an instant success, and Harry’s dreams have come true…but at what cost?
Author
Ben H. Winters is the author most recently of the novel The Quiet Boy (Mulholland/Little, Brown, 2021). He is also the author of the novel Golden State; the New York Times bestselling Underground Airlines; The Last Policeman and its two sequels; the horror novel Bedbugs; and several works for young readers. His first novel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, was also a Times bestseller. Ben has won the Edgar Award for mystery writing, the Philip K. Dick award in science fiction, the Sidewise Award for alternate history, and France’s Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire. Ben also writes for film and television. He is the creator and co-showrunner of Tracker, forthcoming on CBS. Previously he was a producer on the FX show Legion, and on the upcoming Apple TV+ drama Manhunt. He has contributed short stories to many anthologies, as well as in magazines such as Lightspeed. He is the author of four “Audible Originals”– Stranger, Inside Jobs, Q&A, and Self Help—and several plays and musicals. His reviews appear frequently in the New York Times Book Review. Ben was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Maryland, educated in St. Louis, and then grew up a bunch more, in various ways, in places like Chicago, New York, Cambridge, MA, and Indianapolis, IN. These days he lives in LA with his wife, three kids, and one large dog.
