Jack Lennox is broke and fleeing both himself and the wrath of his ex-wife. He is traveling on an interstate bus, and when the driver finds that he is riding on an expired ticket, he is put off at Del’s Oasis, a way stop in the middle of a great southwestern desert area, Lennox has had nothing to eat in two days, so the offer of odd-job work by Al Perrins, the owner of the Oasis, is a godsend. He accepts it. Next morning he witnesses the cold blooded murder by contract of Perrins by two well-dressed men. Lennox manages to escape into the surrounding desert, but is seen by the assassins. In the midst of his flight, Lennox stumbles upon Jana Hennessey, a writer of children’s books. Jana has made a mistake in her life which has destroyed all her inner peace, and she has come to the desert ostensibly to research her latest book. Lennox convinces her to give him a lift to the small nearby town of Cuenca Seco. He doesn’t know that it has become an ambush arranged by Harry Vollyer, the coldly methodical and deadly leader of the assassin team. Lennox and Jana barely manage to survive as they run still deeper into the desert. Dehydrating heat, desolate terrain, lack of food and water — and the relentless pursuit of Vollyer and his partner — combine to make escape seem impossible. And yet, unknown to the runners, there is in Cuenca Seco a deputy sheriff, Andy Brackeen, whose former big-city training refuses to allow him to ignore various clues and hunches connected with the murder of the Oasis owner. The novel moves inevitably toward the confrontation among the five principals in Panic! The climax is brutal, in keeping with the harsh natural elements in which it takes place. And yet it forces Jana and Lennox and Brackeen to come to terms with their own weaknesses and fears. Panic! is a story of survival, terror and individual revelation. It will be a completely satisfactory reading experience for all Pronzini fans