Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future.

Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontation with a cop on a New York City subway goes tragically wrong, those seconds give Preble the chance to dodge a bullet—causing another man to die in his place. 

Government agencies become aware of Preble’s gift, a manhunt ensues, and their ambitions shift from law enforcement to military R&D. Preble will do whatever it takes to protect his family, but as events spiral out of control, he must weigh the cost of his gift against the loss of his humanity. 

A breathless thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page, The Man Who Saw Seconds explores the nature of time, the brain as a prediction machine, and the tension between the individual and the systems we create. Alexander Boldizar provides an adrenaline-pumping read that will leave you contemplating love, fear and the abyss.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

THE MAN WHO SAW SECONDS 

“By turns hilarious and harrowing, The Man Who Saw Seconds is our era’s Dr. Strangelove, a brilliantly conceived sci-fi absurdist romp, where one man’s tussle with local law enforcement escalates into a battle against the larger social institutions we labor to uphold while struggling to survive within, prisoners of our own fears. Come for the polar bear brawl, stay for the threat of nuclear holocaust—for in the derangement of time we must face both monsters and the abyss, while taking care to remember: to fight a monster is to risk becoming one yourself.” 

—Joe Pan, author of Operating Systems 

“The carefully inconspicuous New Yorker, Preble Jefferson, lived a life of ease by virtue of his uncanny but razor-thin edge over typical men in perception and precognition. Starting from this simple premise and his vital understanding of the mindset and mechanisms of the secret chiefs of the world, from beat cops to agency directors, Boldizar spins a terrifically believable adventure: A minor blip of chaos Jefferson didn’t immediately appreciate quickly escalates. His quiet life devolves into a terrifying game of chicken whose stakes spiral out of all proportion and sanity, from home and family to the future of civilization itself. 'Seconds' is a fast-paced treat for those readers who enjoy the full immersion only possible when the author is in command of the facts as well as a fertile imagination.” 

—Mike Spencer Bown, author of The World’s Most Travelled Man 

“With Jason Bourne's frenetic pace and The Terminator's body count, The Man Who Saw Seconds is at the surface an action-packed thriller. But as I raced through the pages I also delighted in Boldizar's intelligence and humor as—bit by bit—he shows us how male decision cycles and egos can escalate the mayhem. I kept thinking, 'No, he won't,' but then he did, and I was fascinated at every turn. This nail-biting novel left me blinking, reeling and contemplating fear and love, and the horrifying extremes we'll go to for each.” 

—Emma Payne, author of Technology with Curves

"Alexander Boldizar's brilliantly wild The Man Who Saw Seconds is part thriller, part gunfight (hell of a gunfight), part intellectual examination of what we mean when we say 'freedom,' and all heart. Absurd, hilarious, and deadly serious, this is the rare novel that is both compulsively readable and philosophically deft. If the thought of Kafka as a chess boxer, or Kundera fighting a polar bear excites you, this is definitely the book for you." 

—Mark Powell, author of Hurricane Season

"The Man Who Saw Seconds, Alexander Boldizar’s second novel, is a thinking reader’s thriller, the story of Preble Jefferson, a simple family guy and inconspicuous Everyman, who just happens to be able to see five seconds into the future. Meticulously researched, surprisingly philosophical, The Man Who Saw Seconds is a brilliant page-turner, a book about brain function and perception, national intelligence systems and law enforcement, the nature of time and space. A lot of smart people can’t write fiction—too smart, too self-absorbed. But Boldizar is one of our happy exceptions. This book is a blast." 

—Pete Duval, author of The Deposition

OFFICIAL RELEASE 5/21/2024

ISBN: 9781960988072

EMAIL

clashmediabooks@gmail.com

for galleys

E-Galleys also will be available on Edelweiss in October

Alexander Boldizar was the first post-independence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Bali, an attorney in San Francisco and Prague, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, a paleontologist in the Sahara, a porter in the High Arctic, a consultant on Wall Street, an art critic out of Jakarta and Singapore, and a police-abuse watchdog and Times Square billboard writer in New York City. He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Boldizar’s writing has won the PEN/Nob Hill prize, a Somerset Award for literary fiction, and other awards, including a Best New American Voices nomination. His novel, The Ugly, was a best-seller among small presses in the United States with several “Best Book of 2016” awards and lists. He has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is a founding director of a charity that brings circus to youth in at-risk communities, and was once challenged to a leg-wrestling contest by the founder of The Onion.