Whitley Strieber
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Product Description What would we do if a nuclear weapon was detonated in Washington, and the US government suddenly disappeared? What would we do if
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a terrorist organization announced that it had concealed nuclear weapons in ever major western city and then demanded that the entire planet embrace its twisted brand of Muslin fundamentalism? In Critcal Mass, nuclear interdiction expert James Deutsh and his tormented Muslim wife, Nabila, struggle to stop an impending nuclear attack on an American city. Along the way, they delve deep into the hidden world of nuclear terrorism and the experts who strive to contain it, and get a compelling look at the titanic battle within Islam over its own future--fundamentalist and rejecting, or compassionate and life-embracing? Like Whitley Strieber's classics Warday and The Coming Global Superstorm, Critical Mass is torn straight from the dark pages of a very dangerous and very possible future. From Publishers Weekly In this overheated thriller about nuclear terrorism from bestseller Strieber (2012: The War for Souls), Jim Deutsch, a CIA contract employee whose expertise is counterproliferation, has the world's fate in his hands as he races to foil the Islamic master-terrorist known as the Madhi. When Deutsch learns that some plutonium has been smuggled over the U.S. border from Mexico, he begins to suspect that America's elaborate homeland security apparatus has been compromised. His valiant efforts, alas, aren't enough to prevent the destruction of Las Vegas. As U.S. president William Fitzgerald ponders whether to launch devastating counterattacks aimed at much of the Muslim world, the tension rises, but the impact is undercut by some uneven prose (She looked back at him as if from another dimension, her gaze resplendent with the unquenchable hope of youth, her mother's proud lips, determined, supremely confident that her dad was the great man she believed him to be). (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Strieber, known for his science fiction and nonfiction speculation about extraterrestrials, tackles the war on terror in a page-turning thriller. James Deutsch, a government agent and expert on nuclear weapons, fears that a terrorist organization has brought a bomb across the Mexican border. While investigating, he finds himself facing roadblocks at every turn, forcing him not to trust anyone. Does someone in the government have inside knowledge? Then the unthinkable happens, and it appears to be only a matter of time before the U.S. collapses. Strieber knows how to create suspense, and he provides a too-realistic-for-comfort scenario that should land him on the talk-show circuit declaiming on terrorism. For thriller readers, though, the important thing to remember is that this novel is less a Vince Flynn–type action romp than it is a rant about the bureaucratic bunglings of government agencies amid the chaos of a terrorist threat, so steer readers accordingly. --Jeff Ayers Review "Whitley Strieber's Critical Mass is one hell of a book--a frighteningly plausible conspiracy-thriller that is so real it sometimes feels like an expose. Nuclear killers, lovers on the run, all-knowing, omnipresent listening and seeing devices - Critical Mass conjures up a world that is terrifying in its technological plausibility - if not probability."--Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Blasphemy "Nothing less than a certifiable page-turner. As I was reading it, I kept seeing the story unfolding on the big screen, just like The Day After Tomorrow. The threat of a nuclear strike against the U.S. is very real and very chilling, as are the kinds of people Strieber has conjured up in this really exciting yarn."--David Hagberg, USA Today bestselling author of Dance with the Dragon "Engrossing . . . A first rate exercise in literary paranoia."--Publisher's Weekly on The Grays "[A] tru
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