Ruth Run: A Novel

A Crime Reads Best Book of the Year!

"A wildly fun and thrilling read in this age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces us to an irresistible heroine and, in Elizabeth Kaufman, a scintillating new voice in contemporary fiction." —Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Today Will Be Different

Cybercrime leads to a cross-country pursuit as an ambitious young thief exploits a hacked microchip to rob banks, and learns too late that the wrong people have been watching her

Twenty-six-year-old Ruth excels at microchip design but decides to get rich the old-fashioned way: robbing banks. She becomes a cybercriminal and devotes five years to siphoning more than $250 million out of the banking system using a hacked firewall chip that she created and only she knows how to access. Then one night an alarm goes off and she realizes she’s been discovered.

Five hours later she’s on the run, chased across California and the West by a slew of government agents who see her as both a high-level national security threat and a potential intelligence asset. They’ll catch her dead or alive—whatever it takes to make sure no one else discovers what she knows. Embedded among their ranks is Mike, an obsessive figure from Ruth’s past who may work as an intelligence agent but has very different intentions for Ruth. Always a step ahead, armed with her ironic wit and a reluctant dog, Ruth constantly eludes their understanding; can she elude their capture, too?

A nonstop thriller for the age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces an irresistible new heroine and a fantastic new voice in contemporary fiction.