INTRODUCTION

In mid-2008 I agreed to donate a short young-adult thriller to another ITW-sponsored anthology. Once again, I’d be limited to 5k words. At the time I was deep into the young-adult Repairman Jack novels I’d contracted to write and had introduced some piney kids into the trilogy.

(If you’re not familiar with what a piney is, it’s explained in the story.)

I thought maybe I’d take them out for a spin in their own story (with young Jack along, of course) and see what they could do.