The Janus Run: A Calder Strayne Thriller

A dead courier. Half of an impossible key. And a car that refuses to be owned. Former special operations soldier Calder Strayne works for Meridian Section, a covert six-person intelligence unit built to stop threats governments cannot acknowledge. His newest partner is Kestrel 76: a bulletproof experimental grand tourer armed with prototype weapons, autonomous driving systems, and Vox, an artificial intelligence with a dry wit and an increasingly inconvenient will of his own. When a casino courier dies carrying part of the key to JANUS-a system capable of seizing every autonomous machine connected to it-Calder is pulled into a race across casinos, mountain railways, floating cities, submerged installations, and a volcanic island fortress. Behind the conspiracy stands Lucien Veyr, a strategist who believes freedom is only inefficiency wearing a noble name. With infiltration specialist Sera Lorne guarding secrets of her own, a traitor operating inside Meridian, and an enemy who can predict their most likely choices, Calder and Vox must learn to trust each other before JANUS turns the connected world into a single obedient weapon. Because winning will take more than speed, firepower, or one last impossible bluff. It will require giving a machine the freedom to say no. The Janus Run is a fast, cinematic action-spy thriller filled with international intrigue, high-velocity chases, covert technology, dry humor, and a fiercely independent intelligent car.