Chris James is fifty-five years old, a fintech executive from Northeast Ohio, and the last person who should be finding serial killers. He has a gift he never asked for — when he touches a murderer, he sees what they've done. It happened once in 1988 and then went silent for thirty-seven years.

Until a bar on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Chris and his oldest friend Tom Brucey are spending a long weekend on Indian Rocks Beach when a man named Monroe sits down two stools away at PJ's Oyster Bar. When Monroe extends his hand, Chris blinks. Three bodies. Three locations. All killed the same way. And the absolute certain knowledge of who put them there.

Tom was there in 1988 when the gift first fired. He recognizes what he sees in Chris's face before Chris says a word. They stay. They watch Monroe. They call Joe Flowers — Chris's best friend since third grade — who begins pulling records from Northeast Ohio. What Joe finds confirms what Chris already knows in the only way that holds up outside of a blink.

They take it to the police. The investigation begins to move.

But the gift has a cost. The headache that started the night Chris shook Monroe's hand never fully leaves. Knowing something is never free. And the price goes up every time.

THE KNOWING is the first book in a four-book series about what friendship looks like when the cost keeps getting higher.