Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2020 by James Patterson
Cover design by Anthony Morais
Cover image by Roy Bishop/Arcangel
Jacket © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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First ebook edition: August 2020

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ISBN 978-1-5387-1887-2 (trade paperback) / 978-1-5387-1900-8 (large-print paperback) / 978-1-5387-1888-9 (hardcover library edition) / 978-1-5387-0366-3 (ebook)

E3-20200630-DA-NF-ORI

Dedication

For Bob DiLallo and Ed Petrillo

—R.D.

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Prologue

Prologue

IT’S MONDAY. IT’S AUGUST. And it’s one of those days that’s already so hot at 6 a.m. that they tell you to check on your elderly neighbors and please don’t go outside if you don’t have to. So of course I’m jogging through the stifling, smelly streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with a dog—a dog named The Duke. Yes. Not Duke, but The Duke. That’s his name. That’s what my son, Willie, who was four years old when The Duke was a puppy, wanted. So that’s what we did.

The Duke is a terrific dog, a mixed breed German shepherd, terrier, and God knows what else from the Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition—BARC—animal shelter. He’s cuter than any guy I ever dated, and Willie was instinctively right about the dog’s name. He’s The Duke. The Duke is snooty and snobby and slow. He actually seems to think he’s royalty. His Highness belongs to Willie, but for forty-five minutes a day, The Duke condescends to be my running buddy.