Dave Thomas and Road to Perdition creator Max Allan Collins have co-written an exciting, innovative thriller: THE MANY LIVES OF JIMMY LEIGHTON, in which smalltime Boston thief Jimmy Leighton stumbles into a perilous quantum experiment – and a bullet – propelling him down the multiple paths his life might have taken. The novel will be published digitally by publisher NeoText and include a print edition as well.
Jimmy Leighton has only two things going for him – his bad boy skills and a good woman’s love. In debt to a Vietnamese mob boss, Jimmy needs a score, and hits a nondescript house with a high-tech laboratory tucked away in the basement. With no idea what he’s looking at, Jimmy accidentally activates a quantum machine and is simultaneously shot by another intruder, sending him two places at once – a Boston hospital in a coma, and a Chicago penthouse apartment in another version of his life.
The petty crook has inadvertently become the guinea pig of MIT physicist Dr. Neil Goldman, whose research into the Many Worlds Theory opens a multi-dimensional portal of possibilities. Before Jimmy can adjust to his new life as a rich man in Chicago, he finds himself in a boxing ring being pummeled by a formidable opponent. Unable to control these transitions, Jimmy hops from one version of his life to another, each becoming more challenging and dangerous than the last.
Concurrently, Cambridge detectives Sam Neer and Taylor Farr – a crusty Black cop uncomfortably paired with a young female partner – remain in Jimmy’s original world, trying to solve the mystery of who shot the little thief from Southie. Their investigation draws them into the treacherous worlds of Boston crime and industrial espionage.
