10 Blocks

Ten blocks. One little girl. One very small knife.

Richard Fox is forty-six, forty pounds over, and the guy the office calls when the printer jams. Nobody has ever asked about his chemistry minor. Nobody has ever asked about the little red pocketknife his father gave him when he was nine, either.

On the Fourth of July he steps out for a hot dog, and a lost five-year-old takes hold of the leg of his shorts. Her name is on every phone in New York. Her father is forty feet away, and he is not going home without her.

The streets are barricaded for the parades. The police can't get through. All Richard has is a bad ankle, a 911 operator who has started calling it like Game 7, and whatever he can find between here and the children's hospital: four raisins, a garden hose, a box of cornstarch, a lemon.

He would honestly rather be home putting up a shelf.

10 Blocks is a funny, big-hearted suspense novel about the quiet man nobody notices, and the one afternoon a whole city cheers for him without ever learning his name.

Bonus: includes all ten of Richard's science experiments to try at home, each with a full safety guide.