Expiration Date

An out-of-work reporter travels back to the 1970s where he has a chance to stop a murder in this hard-boiled science fiction mystery.
"Fashioning an unholy mash-up of Back to the Future, The Time Machine, and Twelve Monkeys, Swierczynski shows once again that when it comes to pulp velocity, pop culture savoir-faire, and storyteller bravado, he's settling all the standards." —Megan Abbott, author of The Song Is You and Bury Me Deep
Winner, 2011 Anthony Award

Mickey Wade is out of work, out of time, and quite possible out of his mind.


Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment—his sick grandfather's place. The only problem: it's in a lousy neighborhood—the one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape.


But now he's back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he's reached rock bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally.


At first he thinks it's a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, searching for answers about the grandfather he hardly knows, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below.


The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey's father . . .

"Swierczynski cleverly melds the thriller and fantasy elements (especially the notion of nonlinear time), producing a thoroughly readable, suspenseful romp that evokes John D. MacDonald's pulp classic The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything." —Booklist
"Duane Swierczynski is one of the best thriller writers in America, and probably my favorite. I blazed through Expiration Date in one sitting and I loved it." —James Frey, New York Times–bestselling author of Bright Shiny Morning and A Million Little Pieces