Alex McKnight--hero of Steve Hamilton's bestselling, award-winning, and beloved private eye series--is back in a high-stakes, nail-biting thriller, facing the most dangerous enemy he's ever encountered. On the Mediterranean Sea, a vacationer logs on to the security-camera feed from his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Something about his living room seems not quite right--the room is bright, when he's certain he'd left the curtains closed. Rewinding through the feed, he sees an intruder. When he shifts to the bedroom camera, he sees the dead body. Martin T. Livermore is the key suspect in the abduction and murder of at least five women, but he's never been this sloppy before. When the FBI finally catches him in Scottsdale, he declares he'll only talk to one person: a retired police officer from Detroit, now a private investigator living in the tiny town of Paradise, Michigan. A man named Alex McKnight. Livermore means nothing to McKnight, but it soon becomes clear McKnight means something to Livermore...and that Livermore's capture was only the beginning of an elaborate, twisted plot with McKnight at the center. In a hunt that will take him across the country and to the edge of his limits, McKnight fights to stop a vicious killer before he can exact his ultimate revenge. And his grand finale will cut closer to home than he ever could have imagined. Praise for Dead Man Running "Brilliant...The plot develops in multiple unexpected directions, and its logical convolutions are matched by Hamilton's deepening portrayal of his fully realized lead."-- Publishers Weekly "Alex McKnight's been put through the ringer before, but never quite like this....Steve Hamilton rakes his hero over the coals, taking him to hell and back as he faces off with a man so evil that he'd scare the hell out of the devil himself. Full of twists and turns, Hamilton's latest McKnight novel is raw, dark, and absolutely relentless.... Dead Man Running proves that Steve Hamilton is one of the best crime writers on the planet, and his latest showing will leave readers begging for more."--The Real Book Spy "Hamilton's long-awaited reboot of the McKnight series is a streamlined, gut-wrenching thriller."-- Booklist Praise for Steve Hamilton and the Alex McKnight series "Whatever he writes, I'll read. Steve Hamilton's that good."--Lee Child "Steve Hamilton writes the kind of stories that manly men and tough-minded women can't resist."-- The New York Times "I'm often asked to recommend a detective series readers might have missed. This is it."--Harlan Coben "Hamilton's compelling, vigorous prose doesn't allow the option of taking a break."-- Los Angeles Times "Steve Hamilton writes tough, passionate novels with a strong emphasis on heart and humanity. This is crime writing at its very best."--George Pelecanos Steve Hamilton is the New York Times --bestselling author of fourteen novels, most recently Exit Strategy and The Second Life of Nick Mason . His debut, A Cold Day in Paradise , won both an Edgar Award and a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. His stand-alone novel The Lock Artist was a New York Times Notable Crime Book and won an Alex Award and the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Hamilton attended the University of Michigan, where he won the Hopwood Award for writing, and now lives in Cottekill, New York, with his wife and their two children. Dead Man Running By Steve Hamilton Penguin Publishing Group Copyright © 2018 Steve Hamilton All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-399-57444-3 ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 Steve Hamilton The act was done in a moonless desert darkness, but seen in the light, half a world away. It was just before 4 p.m. on a bright February day on the Mediterranean Sea when a man named Frank Thompson logged on to his laptop. He was one of more than three thousand passengers on the cruise ship, midway between Sardinia and Sicily. His home in Scottsdale, Arizona, was six thousand miles and eight time zones away. Now that the ship’s Internet service had finally been restored, Frank just wanted to know two things: That the video cameras installed in his house were working. And that his house was safe and secure. The man’s wife was up on the deck. She didn’t think he should be worrying about the house. She thought he should be relaxing and actually enjoying this cruise, after waiting so many years to do this. After spending twelve grand to make this trip happen. I’ll start enjoying this, Frank said to himself, when I can get a little peace of mind. He checked the first video feed. It came from the X10 Internet camera mounted on the bookshelf next to the fireplace. It was positioned so that the lens would look through the legs of a wooden elephant, and it communicated wirelessly with the server in the study, which in turn fed the images to the Web. Available to see anytime, anywhere in the world. At least when the Internet was working. The