Wild Fire

The wildly improbable plot of Nelson DeMille’s 2006 thriller is that  retired NYPD, now FBI detective John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, narrowly foil a plot by US government higher ups and a crazy war veteran/oil billionaire  detonate nuclear bombs in two American cities  in order to set off an automatic nuclear retaliatory barrage from submarines of all Arab lands except Israel and the oil fields.

This plot, said to have been rumored on the internet, might have been more plausible under the Bush regime but is less so now.

Also hard to believe is that the planetary devastation of so many nuclear blasts would be considered acceptable or even survivable, especially by Israel and the oil fields.

Nevertheless, this is an exciting and entertaining read for all lovers of detective stories, and it warns us of the human tendency to seek security and to wreck  vengeance whatever the cost.