The author of "Fast Food Nation" blends a riveting minute-by-minute account of an atomic bomb accident with a chilling assessment of the grave threat Western nations still face from nuclear weapons.

"It's been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends his time trying to forget about the past. Then one day, an old family friend grabs Gloomy from his off-site work station and smuggles him away in a hollow tree trunk....

"A basic understanding of the science and history of nuclear weapons, including attempts to control, limit, and use them, and the prospects for eliminating them completely"--

"Against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election, five simultaneous murders on three continents leads a cyber sleuth to a thread revealing someone has just bought five nuclear weapons. But who and what is their target? American intelligence expert Ray Bowman is brought in to find out. With the help of a Mossad agent and a female South African intelligence officer, he races around the world to stop nuclear terror. Washington fears the bombs...

The most important place in American nuclear history are the Marshall Islands--an idyllic Pacific paradise that served as the staging ground for over sixty US nuclear tests. It was here, from 1946 to 1958, that America perfected the weapon that preserved the peace of the post-war years. It was here--with the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll--that America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima....

"This timely title discusses the creation of the atom bomb and the post-World War II nuclear arms race that shaped the consciousness of generations. Primary and secondary source materials such as contemporary photos, speeches, letters, and newspaper accounts are examined, offering readers insight into a world reeling from years of conflict, and the competing political and social ideologies of the former Soviet Union and the United States and its allies....

Jerry Mitchell, now the commodore of submarine Development Squadron Five, is dismayed when USS Toledo is reported missing in Arctic waters, close to Russian territory. The vessel is captained by his former shipmate and close friend, Lenny Berg. Eager to investigate, Jerry convinces the Navy to redirect one of his squadron's boats to find out what happened. It turns out Toledo was sunk just outside of Russian territorial waters by a torpedo launched...