Cannonball City: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year One

A mass murderer wants him dead. A mysterious faction of spandex-wearing crime-fighters wants to recruit him to their team. And his friends want him to lie low from all life-ending threats. What's a tennis star like Jimmy Knightly to do? Fight them all, of course. In this identity-shifting epic journey, Jimmy will travel the path between sports hero to superhero, whether he wants to or not.

On Day 4 of the Australian Open, the temperatures are insufferable, and Jimmy Knightly is engaged in a heated battle against his rival, Jake "The Rake" Caramel, for advancement to the third round. With the exception of the fierce heat, the match goes as he expects--he plays hard, and Caramel plays dirty. They keep it neck and neck for as long as they can, but as they near the end of the match, Caramel goes for the injury shot. Moments later, a man in the crowd takes a real shot. Chaos ensues in the stadium. Jimmy is whisked away to the hospital. His chance to advance to the next round ends.

The events at the Australian Open seem random at first. An irate fan goes berserk--could happen to anyone, for any sport. But as Jimmy spends the next couple of months recovering from his injury, he begins to discover how dangerous a turn his match at the Open has taken. Someone has put a price on his head, and the man taking the contract is an unstoppable killer with masks and support cover-up technology that no one knows how to investigate. Everyone tells Jimmy to run, as this killer is a ghost in the flesh, but Jimmy is not so willing to give up his life, no matter how likely this guy would kill him.

Fortunately, FBI Special Agents Joyce McKinley and Thomas Sturgeon are on the case. This enigmatic killer, the Spotless Cowboy, has been on Sturgeon's radar for eleven months, and he and McKinley are eager to close the book on him. Sturgeon just needs cooperation with Jimmy, and part of that means keeping him alive. Every little bit of information he can offer to uncover the Cowboy's identity helps. But Jimmy's memory is terrible. He would have to draw this killer out in the open again just to identify him. Sturgeon is not against the idea of using bait, but he would prefer to protect his asset. That means putting him in Witness Relocation, even if it doesn't change the fact that Jimmy is a celebrity who cannot actually hide.

However, deep in the mysterious waters of the Caribbean, a secluded island called New Switzerland is designed to do just that--hide people who don't want to be found. But is it any safer than Los Angeles?

What follows is an epic journey of trust, realistic expectations, unrealistic expectations, terror, weirdness, unrequited love, and ultimately heroic transformation, as Jimmy, in his quest to put the Spotless Cowboy behind him, somehow manages to invite even scarier people into his life who want to turn it upside down and mash him into pulp. And those are just the good guys.

Please Note: This super-long "Annual Edition" consists of the abridged versions of three consecutive (not-yet-individually-released) "A Modern-day Fantasy" novels. It is arranged to flow seamlessly as a single volume taking up one year of Jimmy Knightly's heroic adventure.