Agent Seventeen, the most infamous hitman in the world, has quit. But whoever wants to become Assassin Eighteen must track him down and kill him first.

So when a bullet hits the glass inches from his face, he knows who fired it - doesn't he?

But the sniper isn't the hardened killer he was expecting. It's Mireille - a mysterious, silent child, abandoned in the woods with instructions to pull the trigger.

Reuniting with his spiky lover, Kat, Seventeen must protect Mireille, and discover who sent her to kill him, and why.

But the road he must travel is littered with bodies. And the answer, when it comes, will blow apart everything Seventeen thought he knew.

John Brownlow holds British/Canadian citizenship and lives two hours north of Toronto. He wrote the film Sylvia, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig, the TV series Fleming about Ian Fleming's work as a spy and the genesis of James Bond, and the TV series The Miniaturist, adapted from Jessie Burton's best-selling novel.