If you look up bad luck, you'll find John Tanner's picture.

His father died before he was born. His mother when he was twelve. He did a stretch in Leavenworth and took a dishonorable discharge—all for decking a colonel assaulting a private. Try finding a job with that on your resume.

Then one night a limo pulls up to the warehouse John’s guarding. The window slides down, and a dying old man named Farnsworth presses a ring into his hand.

Thirty years ago, Farnsworth made a promise to a stranger on a freeway—deliver this ring to the man's pregnant wife. He never did. The ring spoke into his mind, so he kept it, and it made him billions. Now, wracked by guilt, he's giving it to the stranger’s son.

The moment it touches his palm, John Tanner becomes the most wanted man on Earth.

Because his father was no drifter. He was a lawman of the Galactic Patrol, murdered by the aliens he'd come to arrest. And the ring is a key to a beat-up starship, a galactic cop's patrol car, with John's name on it now.

It's the fresh start he's always wanted. If the alien killers hunting him don't punch his ticket first.