The Pickers

In a world where society discards both trash and people, some survivors know how to profit from both. Beneath the glittering skyline of a corrupt American city, a group of homeless scavengers—known only as The Pickers—live on the margins, digging through landfills for more than food and scrap metal. They hunt for information. Bank slips, broken hard drives, forgotten files—anything that can be sold, traded, or leveraged for one more day of survival. Led by the fierce and resilient Mama Jo, with the jittery Red, tech-savvy Bug, and the mysterious newcomer Eli, the crew makes a discovery that could expose a massive web of political corruption. Hidden in a battered briefcase are files belonging to a powerful city official—documents that were never meant to be found. Suddenly, the Pickers are no longer invisible. Hunted by enforcers, betrayed from within, and pulled into a deadly conspiracy, they must choose between fleeing back into the shadows or fighting a system that’s rigged against them. The Pickers is a raw, unflinching novel about survival, betrayal, and the forgotten underclass who live between society’s cracks—and what happens when they stumble upon a truth too powerful to bury.