Mojave Run: Volume 1

THE EPIC BATTLE FOR LIFE BEGINS.

Before the “Red Death” virus destroyed his world, Billy Dagger was a simple man with a wife and kids and a custom auto shop in Kingman, Arizona where he made a name for himself on the street-racing circuit. Now he’s an outlaw riding with a ragtag crew of road pirates in the Mojave, hijacking secret shipments of vaccines that were bought and paid for by the wealthy elite who plan to establish a new society of survivors. The rest of the world is left to die. But with every score, Billy saves 50,000 helpless souls. To those people, he’s a hero. To the wealthy families that he’s been stealing from, he’s a terrorist. Now there’s a bounty on his head and he’s on the run with the only family he has left: his 10-year-old son Bo, who just wants Billy to stop being a hero to the world and start being a father again. But for Billy, the blaze of glory is always calling… and this time there may be no going back.

25 years later — in the Republic of Phoenix — when a group of refugees sneak across the border wall with forged microchips in their wrists and a strange new virus in their bloodstream, the paranoid city and the outside world begin to clash. Now history is repeating itself, and the lives of four desperate souls from opposite sides of the wall are about to collide: Croix Youngblood, the reclusive outlaw trying to protect his family in the Blaze. Inspector Brixton Grace, the disgraced lawman trying to reclaim his “golden boy” reputation. Zee Hendricks, the defiant pregnant woman determined to bring her outlawed child into the world. And Lucian Vanderbon, the embattled politician trying to keep his city from collapsing. As all hell breaks loose, they find themselves caught in a deadly conspiracy, unleashing a cult of evil, resurrecting the legend of Billy Dagger and uncovering all the dark secrets of the past that now hold the keys to their future.

Part heist thriller. Part mystery. Part western allegory. Mojave Run is an epic tale of flawed heroism, the unforgiving nature of our past, and the vicious cycle of sin and unfulfilled redemption that most of us never escape.

Jared Martin is a native of Florida where he lives with his family in chaotic harmony. He's an unapologetic dreamer, an unreformed pop culture addict, and a firm believer that "one thing is stronger than all the armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come." Mojave Run is his first novel.