51%

By

Matt Witten
In a future where corporations own everything—including people—one murder could ignite a revolution.
51%

By

Matt Witten

In a future where corporations own everything—including people—one murder could ignite a revolution.

In a future where corporations own everything—including people—one murder could ignite a revolution.

Twenty years from now, the United States is completely privatized. The Big Six syndicates own schools, roads, police departments… even human beings.

When a young immigrant woman—51% owned by the syndicates—is brutally murdered, NYPD, Inc. detective Juke O’Keefe and his partner, crime marketing consultant Haylee Navarro, catch the case. Pregnant and broke, Haylee knows they can’t crowdfund enough from a dead immigrant to pay for basic forensics, let alone their paychecks. But Juke, with his old-school sense of justice, is determined to find the killer.

Their search for the truth leads them to Juke’s ex, a Resistance leader on the syndicates’ most wanted list. As the three join forces, they stumble onto a conspiracy designed to destroy the last shreds of American freedom. To rescue fifty-one percenters—and everyone else—from syndicate control, they’ll have to defeat the Red Queen, the most ruthless, powerful AI in the world.

51% is a gritty, fast-paced thriller about power, justice, and what happens when everything—even people—can be owned.

About the Author

Matt Witten is a TV writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who has written for Law & Order, House, Pretty Little Liars, and many other shows. His thriller The Necklace has been published in eight languages and optioned for film by Leonardo DiCaprio. Killer Story won a Foreword Indie award for Best Mystery. Matt wrote four amateur sleuth novels, including the Malice Domestic Award-winning Breakfast at Madeline’s, and has been nominated for two Edgars and an Emmy. His speculative thriller, 51%, comes out in April 2026. You can read Matt’s piece “Burn, Baby, Burn: Losing Our Home in the Palisades Fire” on mattwittenwriter.com/blog.

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