It's not just a game when you're running for your life. Every night they tuned in to the nation's favourite prime-time TV game show. They all watched, from the sprawling slums to the security-obsessed enclaves of the rich. They all watched the ultimate live death game as the contestants tried to bet not the clock, but annihhilation at the hands of the Hunters. Survive thirty days and win the billion dollar jackpot — that was the promise. But the odds were brutal and the game rigged. Best score so far was eight days. And now there was a new contestant, the latest running man, staking his life while a nation watched.

'Thinner' — the old gypsy man barely whispers the word. Billy feels the touch of a withered hand on his cheek.Billy Halleck, prosperous if overweight citizen, happily married, shuddered then turned angrily away. The old woman's death had been none of his fault. The courts had cleared him. She'd just stumbled in front of his car. Now he simply wanted to forget the whole messy business. Later, when the scales told him he was losing weight, it was what the doctor ordered. His wife was pleased — as she should have been. But...'Thinner' — the word, the old man's curse, has lodged in Billy's mind like a fattening worm, eating at his flesh, at his reason. And with his despair, comes violence.

He's got a plan. But he hasn't got a clue. Clayton Blaisdell's capers are strictly small-time until he meets George Rackley. With Blaze's brawn and George's brains, the pull of a hundred successful cons. Then George plans the one big score every small time dreams of: kidnapping the infant heir to a family fortune. The trouble is that by the time the deal goes down, the brains of the operation has died. Or has he? Now Blaze is running into the white hell of the Maine woods with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time...