SKIP

Mari Encinas builds her living on three things: a Glock 19, a reliable truck, and the ability to find people who don't want to be found. She's a bail recovery agent — a skip tracer — and she's spent four years being faster and more careful than everyone who tried to make the job complicated. She's good at this. She has never lost a skip.

Stuart Lisk was supposed to be the easiest one she'd ever run.

Then she finds him in under a day, and forty minutes later three armed men arrive at the motel. Not bail enforcement. Cartel.

Before she can sort out who sold him out or whether the federal agent offering help is actually one of the good ones, there's a thumb drive Stuart won't let go of that contains $340 million in evidence, a safe house that burns the night after she chooses it, a pay phone call to an Army contact that surfaces a name in the wrong column, and six pieces of information she's been accumulating since the first parking lot that are pointing somewhere she really didn't want them to point.

She's spent four years keeping it professional because professional is the only version of herself that hasn't cost her anything she couldn't afford to lose. He spent three years being careful and precise about a courageous thing — and ended up here anyway, running for his life in a borrowed truck with a woman who handcuffed him to a radiator twelve hours ago.

Sun-baked Southwest noir with a romantic thread that earns every inch of what it asks. The kind of thriller you start at noon and finish with all the lights still on.

WHY THIS WILL SELL

→ Thrillers > Pulp carries 6.8 sales-to-comp with an estimated 51 daily sales per top-20 title — a demand-strong, lower-competition niche where a distinctive hook and a specific setting stand out immediately

→ Crime Fiction > Organized Crime runs deeper at 6.9 sales-to-comp with an estimated 171 daily sales per top-20 title — dual-category positioning means two active readerships finding this book simultaneously

→ Bounty hunter heroines are absent from Pulp Thriller's top 20 — a competent, unglamorous female lead in a Southwest chase fills an identified gap; readers who wanted Stephanie Plum's premise with real stakes have nowhere to go right now

→ Handcuffed together + road chase + double-cross is a social-optimized trope stack — competent heroine thrillers with a romantic thread consistently overperform on BookTok share metrics

→ Fair-play mystery architecture gives readers a reason to talk about it — six clues planted from Chapter 3, a defined solve point, and a reveal that rewards close readers; "I figured it out at the campfire scene" drives organic word of mouth

→ The romantic thread is calibrated correctly — enough heat to pull Romantic Suspense readers in, subordinate enough that thriller-first readers never feel hijacked

TROPES: • Competent heroine • Handcuffed together • Enemies to allies • Road chase thriller • The inside man • Double-cross • Unlikely pair • She's the professional, he's the asset • The skip who knows more than he said • Forced proximity • Reluctant protector • Six-clue fair-play mystery

HEAT LEVEL: Closed Door / Significant Romantic Thread — tension and earned connection build across four days; no explicit content; relationship turns physical only after the power dynamic resolves cleanly; HFN guaranteed; four scenes flagged for heat-level adjustment without breaking the outline

Perfect for fans of: Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum series), Kathleen Kent (Betty Rhyzkwoski series), Don Winslow (cartel fiction), and Lee Child (readers who wish Jack Reacher had more emotional development)

WHAT'S INSIDE THIS PACKAGE

⭐️ Story Premise — high-concept pitch, elevator pitch, and market validation with dual-category positioning (Thrillers > Pulp + Crime Fiction > Organized Crime), competitive analysis against Evanovich, Kent, and Winslow, and full Suspense Architecture overview

⭐️ Complete Codex — full story bible with 2 principal characters (full voice profiles and example passages), supporting cast of 9, 8 Sonoran Desert settings with sensory detail, complete chapter timeline plus 18-month hidden backstory timeline, dual third-person limited voice system with distinct verbal patterns for Mari (clipped, action-forward, deadpan) and Stuart (precise, methodical, late-processing), fair-play mystery architecture with 6 planted clues, 2 red herrings, and a defined solve point, Dial the Heat™ guidance for 4 key scenes, and companion book premises for 2 future titles

⭐️ Chapter-by-Chapter Outline — 32 chapters + epilogue with emotional beats, word count targets, scene breakdowns, clue and red herring tracking, and Suspense Architecture pacing mapped across all four days

⭐️ AI-Ready Chapter Prompts — detailed writing instructions for every chapter with tone, pacing, concealment guidance, and Dial the Heat™ flags embedded at 4 key scenes

⭐️ Marketing Copy — Amazon listing with categories and keywords, back cover copy, 50-word short description, social media suite (Instagram + Facebook), newsletter announcement, reader magnet concepts, and a 2-book Southwest Crime Files companion framework

⭐️ Market-Matched™ Brief — category market snapshot, 5 data-backed reasons this sells, competitive positioning against Evanovich and Kent, 7-keyword strategy with per-keyword rationale, KDP category recommendations, pricing strategy, and cover direction

One buyer. One story. Exclusively yours.