Action! Humour! Fantasy! Kicking off a new series with a bang (several bangs, in fact), Stroud sends two young fugitives with murky pasts fleeing murderous pursuers across a fractured future Britain. Scarlett McCain is a shoot-first ask-questions-later kind of outlaw. She scrapes by on bank heists, her wits-and never looking back. She\'s on the run from her latest crime when she comes across Albert Browne. He is the sole survivor of a horrific accident, and against her better judgement, Scarlett agrees to guide him to safety. This is a mistake. Soon there are men with dogs and guns and explosives hot on their heels. Scarlett\'s used to being chased by the law, but this is extreme. It was only a little bank she\'d robbed . . . As they flee together across the wilds, fighting off monstrous beasts, and dodging their pursuers, Scarlett comes to realize that Albert Browne is hiding a terrible secret. And that he may be the most dangerous threat of all. In this fast-paced, quick-witted whirlwind of a story, Jonathan Stroud introduces two unlikely allies-the outlaws Scarlett and Browne-who are about to become the most notorious renegades in all that\'s left of Britain.