Excerpt from Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood , plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The cane looked sturdy enough—smooth black wood topped with a heavy brass handle. I thought maybe she was thinking of lashing out and surprising him with it. Except I'd had a cousin who got that kind of hitch in her voice. Had a limp, too, though hers was a lot worse. I suspected that leaping up and clubbing a man wasn't in Lillian Pentecost's repertoire.

"Yeah, well—it'll be your word against mine," McCloskey sneered. "And you won't be doing any talking."

When I was questioned later—and boy did I get questioned—I said that I didn't think. I just reacted.

Except I did think. The circus kept me on because I had quick hands and an even quicker head. So I had a split-second, lightning-flash inner debate.

The voice in my head arguing the side of running away and letting what happened happen sounded a lot like Darla Delight. Dee-Dee was a former showgirl who did the books for the circus. Very practical woman. When Big Bob Halloway, the owner, would have his semiweekly brilliant idea for a new act, Darla was the one who would calculate the cost and put the kibosh on nine out of every ten brainstorms.

"Have to think about the costs," she'd say. "Especially the invisible ones. All those things that might not be on the bill but you end up paying in the long run. They'll come back and bite your ass."

The voice on the other side of my inner debate sounded a lot like my father. He never counted any cost. He just did what he wanted and damned who got hurt. That I listen to his voice more often than not is something I still wrestle with.

McCloskey muttered something I couldn't catch. What ever it was caused Ms. Pentecost to lean forward on the cot, like a dog testing its leash.

"Who?" she said. "Who told you that?"

"Ah well," he muttered, more to himself than her. "In for a penny and all that." His arm straightened and his finger tight ened on the trigger.

No more debate. I'd made my choice. I was already kneel ing down, pulling up the leg of my trousers, and grabbing hold of the hilt of the knife I kept fastened to my calf in a leather sheath.

Long hours spent with Kalishenko in a hundred dust-choked fields between Boise and Brooklyn made what hap pened next almost too easy. I stood, and in the same motion brought the knife up and over my head in a long arc.

I remembered Kalishenko's words, delivered in a perpetu ally slurred Russian accent. "You do not throw the blade. You do not throw your arm. You throw your entire body forward. The trick is learning to let go at the precise moment."

I threw myself forward and let go at the precise moment.

The weighted blade hit home with a sickening thud. But instead of a pockmarked wooden target, it buried itself a full three inches into McCloskey's back. I'd learn later that only the very tip of the blade pierced his heart. It wasn't much. But it was enough.

The gun fell from his hand. Ms. Pentecost reached out with her cane and knocked it out of reach. McCloskey stumbled, clawing at the hilt sticking out of his back. Then he collapsed forward, his head clipping the edge of the cot. He gave a last, ugly gurgle before going still and silent.

Ms. Pentecost knelt by his body. I expected her to check for a pulse. Instead, her hands went to the watch. A few quick twists and the watch face popped open, revealing a small, hid den compartment. Whatever was inside disappeared into her hand, then the inner pocket of her coat, before she clicked the watch face closed.

"How do you feel?" she asked, standing.

"I don't know," I said. My hands were shaking and my breath was coming quick and shallow. It was a coin flip as to whether I was going to pass out.

"Can you walk?" she asked. I nodded.

"Good. I fear we will both ... need to go to the station house."

"Do we have to?" I asked. "It's just I'm not too fond of cops."

From Fortune Favors the Dead: A Novel by Stephen Spotswood, published by Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2020 by Stephen Spotswood.