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A group of men are gathered around a table at the Custer Hill Club, a
private lodge in the Adirondack Mountains. You might imagine that these
casually dressed gentlemen are discussing hunting and fishing while
downing a few beers, but you’d be wrong. These men—a national security
advisor, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense, a CIA agent, and an ex-Military officer and owner of a big oil
company—are gathered to make a decision that will change the
world.
Also at the table is Agent Harry Muller of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task
Force. Harry was sent to secretly take pictures of people arriving at the Custer Hill Club. But he’s captured by the Club’s security guards and finds himself in the lodge’s board room tied to a chair, forced to listen to the group’s plan to change the world forever while helpless to stop it.
The questions at hand: How does the American government prevent a weapon of mass destruction from obliterating an American city? Unlike the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, the global terrorist network is vague; whom do we retaliate against?
Wild Fire, a secret government protocol known only by the highest members of government, calls for the nuclear obliteration of the entire Islamic world by means of American nuclear missiles in response to a nuclear terrorist attack on America. Seen as a deterrent, Wild Fire is a strong incentive to get Islamic countries to control their terrorists and share information with the United States. The heads of all Islamic governments have been notified that an attack on an American city with a weapon of mass destruction will automatically ensure retaliation.
Effective, right? You’d think so, but the Custer Hill Club doesn’t think
the country should wait. They’ve developed a way to put a quick
end to terrorism and to the clear and imminent nuclear threat to the
American homeland by way of Project Green, the plan to detonate an atomic
device in an American city to trigger the Wild Fire response. In other words, get them before they get us. And now that a federal agent has stumbled into their midst, the group must accelerate the execution of Project Green before anyone tries to stop them.
Enter John Corey, a wise-cracking former NYPD detective assigned to the
Anti-Terrorist Task Force, and his strait-laced partner/wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield. Corey and Mayfield become suspicious when Harry fails to return to New York City, and they set out to find him.
Fans of Nelson DeMille have met John Corey previously, first in Plum Island, then in The Lion’s Game, and again in Night Fall. I didn’t think this book would be as good as all the others if DeMille made John Corey not only married but also partnered with his wife (to whom we’re introduced in Plum Island). I thought it might get a little sappy. I’m glad I was wrong. Corey and Mayfield work together nicely, both giving as good as they get.
Wild Fire is fiction, but it’s based on information DeMille discovered while researching nuclear terrorism. While unable to verify the existence of
any secret plan, DeMille made it the subject of his newest book, resulting
in an exciting, frightening novel about the What Ifs of nuclear
terrorism in a post-9/11 world.
Like all of DeMille’s thirteen other books, it’s a great, fast-paced
suspense novel that reaches out and grabs you from the beginning and sucks you in until the end. No matter how outrageous the story may seem, there’s a feeling of being there with the characters, inside the book. Don’t
miss it.
