Sabotage

An overly complicated, unbelievable plot mars Cook’s thriller debut. Dr. Malcolm Clare, a genius inventor and founder of Glitnir Defense, an aerospace company, hires Austin Hardy and two of Austin’s fellow Stanford doctoral students to assist with Baldr, a “weapons satellite, an arsenal of nuclear weapons orbiting Earth.” Baldr is capable of emitting an electromagnetic pulse that can disable all electronic devices in a country with one burst. After the professor is kidnapped and a mysterious enemy known as the Viking hijacks control of the satellite, Austin teams with Clare’s attractive daughter, Victoria, to find her father and thwart the Viking’s scheme. Meanwhile, an electronic burst incapacitates the Pearl Enchantress shortly before pirates take over the Atlantic cruise ship. Fortunately, former Air Force combat weatherman Jacob Rove is aboard. The good guys have far too easy a time thwarting the evildoers. Confusing prose doesn’t help (e.g., “His trigger finger was ready to joggle”). Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Sept.)