American expatriate Hank Fisher once dreamed about becoming a full-fledged MMA fighter and living a comfortable life with his family in Tokyo, but things have not quite worked out. Two years after his wife, Lisa, took off with their twin sons, Justin and James, following a bitter divorce, Fisher is still struggling to make ends meet, his career all but extinguished. The private investigator he hired to find his family needs more money, but Fisher doesn’t have it. So when a friend with connections to organized crime in Japan offers him an easy job as a bodyguard at a meeting between rivals (he just needs to look tough while sitting there), Fisher accepts the gig despite the bright red flags. All he wants is the money so he can prove to his family he is a changed man. Things go wrong when, during the meeting, Fisher accidentally hurts an important attendee and goes on the run. What follows is an escalating chain of events that include a robbery, murder, an enormous amount of money changing hands, dangerous thugs and the police on Fisher’s trail, and the lives of his family and friends hanging in the balance. As the bodies pile up, Fisher will take any help he can get even if it means going to the one person he despises. Garver’s riveting thriller sees its main character walk a fine line between puppet and puppeteer. The tale skillfully explores Fisher’s lack of agency as events spiral completely out of his control, the bad decisions he makes, his anger management issues, and his inability to fully accept his culpability in the actions that led to his divorce. While on the run, Fisher faces his demons throughout the violent, high-stakes clashes with various players. Unfortunately, the tale’s other characters are not as well developed as the protagonist and become merely incidental to the narrative. In addition, the pacing is uneven, with a lull in the middle of the novel. But the main storyline and Fisher’s arc are deftly, tautly plotted.