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Autokill
Paperback
Mystery & ThrillerScience Fiction
Publisher: Open Road Media Science & Fantasy
Published: Aug 18 2026
Pages: 326
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.73 Width: 5.25 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Driverless cars race to kill in a thriller from Gridlock Sam Schwartz, who knows everything about how cars and people don't get along, with Cary Pepper (The New York Times Book Review).
An expert in traffic jams has a scary idea: what if the cars turn on us? Sam Schwartz, a former New York City traffic commissioner, thinks autonomous vehicles are the future. But his book, Autokill, imagines a world where they go very wrong . . . A nail biter . . . --The New York Times
The year is 2036. CAVs (Connected Autonomous Vehicles) comprise twenty-five percent of the cars on the nation's streets and roads, fleets of robo-cabs crisscross cities, and robos are revolutionizing the country's trucking industry. With new federal regulations in the works, CAVs are about to become an even more integral part of society, which greatly concerns two people, though for vastly different reasons.
Richard Corby, a climate change scientist specializing in artificial intelligence, despairs over Congress and a pro-business president repeating the misguided decisions that put cars over people at the turn of the twentieth century. Jason Bartel―a long-haul trucker who lost both his livelihood and his wife when his best routes were taken over by robo-trucks―believes CAVs will deprive Americans of their fundamental right to drive. Both men set out to change the script.
Meanwhile, federal cybermarshal Dana Grant starts investigating the case of a CAV that blew past a stop sign and killed a woman. Blocked at every turn by her bureaucratic boss, Dana takes matters into her own hands and stumbles on a plot to use CAV technology to kill not one, but thousands of people.
Fast-paced and lucid, Autokill explores themes of technology, capitalism, and politics, and is a must-read for any futuristic thriller fan.
Praise for Sam Schwartz's nonfiction examination of autonomous vehicles, No One Behind the Wheel
A clearheaded bible for the twenty-first-century road --The New Yorker
...breathless and provocative --Foreign Policy Magazine
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