Content Warning: This section references child abuse and sexual violence.

Billy Summers is a 44-year-old hired killer and veteran of the Iraq War, in which he was a Marine sniper. He is in Red Bluff, a southern town, to do “one last job” for Nick Majarian, a man he has worked for in the past. Billy is an avid reader and an autodidact, but he hides his intelligence behind his professional persona—his “dumb self.” In this novel, he goes by the aliases David Lockridge (a writer) and Dalton Smith (an IT worker). He has many other identities including “Thomas Hardy,” in whose name he holds credit cards because Hardy is his favorite writer.

Billy grew up in a trailer park with a single mother who had a series of boyfriends, one of whom was violent and beat her and her children. Eventually, provoked by some burned cookies, he murdered Billy’s younger sister. Billy shot him dead in self-defense, and this event became a turning point in his life. He ended up in foster care when his mother descended into alcohol addiction, and he stayed there when she became dependent on meth. He joined the marines and later became an assassin, but he has a strict moral code; he only kills “bad guys” like the man who killed his sister.