When a deranged loner kills twenty-six people in a Pennsylvania schoolyard, the country is stunned and devastated. Among those catatonic with grief is Jo Matheson, an organic farmer who has lost her goddaughter in the shooting.

Sam Jackson, an egotistical right-wing TV talking head, has sliding ratings and faces imminent cancellation. He arrives in Pennsylvania and during a rant, he blames the parents of the dead children. He intends the tirade to be his last salvo but, incredibly, his ratings climb, while Jo watches from her farmhouse in upstate New York, incensed.

Sam rides the wave, shouting that it’s time to take the country back from the left-wing weaklings who don’t have the courage to protect their children. When he is asked to run for Congress, he accepts and amplifies his message. Watching these developments in horror, Jo finally decides that there actually is something she can do.

She kidnaps Sam’s ten-year-old daughter.

Brad Smith, writer born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. After high school, he worked for the signal department of the Canadian National Railway for three years, and then got a chance to work on a rail project in South Africa. Upon returning from Africa, Smith worked all over the place - Alberta, British Columbia, Texas - at a variety of jobs. Farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and so on. He became a carpenter and built custom homes in Canada. He still works as a carpenter when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. His books have been published by Penguin Canada, Doubleday Canada, Simon & Schuster Canada and his forthcoming novel will be published by At Bay Press.

Brad Smith's profile page

“The Goliath Run” is a fast and compelling read, fuelled by a delightful cast of characters. —The Hamilton Spectator

" Crime novel explores ‘how style and bombast trumps substance and truth." —Prairie Books Now

“One of Canada’s best crime novelists.” “Winnipeg Free Press

"Smith delivers a timely story with memorable characters, satisfying twists and turns, and a breakneck pace that keeps the pages turning. Witty and riveting." — Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour

Smith’s most recent book is a fine-tuned attack on the extremes of Donald Trump’s most rabid supporters. — John Lawrence Reynolds, three-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for mystery fiction