New York Fried

A terrifyingly plausible premise elevates Morrow’s debut and series launch. A new technology, Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), promises to make cable and phone lines redundant by providing internet access at low cost to anyone with electricity. Unbeknownst to President Daniel Emerson, who wants to use BPL to send instant notifications during an emergency, Senator Andre Blais, whose Congressional committee has oversight over BPL, is in bed with the North Koreans, who are plotting to invade the U.S. The North Koreans plan to get access to the BPL system in order to send a destruct signal into America’s power grids. Blais believes that such an attack would “become the catalyst for him to put in place the safeguards necessary” to protect the country. Meanwhile, restauranteur Arthur “Artichoke” Hart, whose restaurant is “one of the CIA’s best equipped offsite meeting places,” is tapped to cater a demonstration of BPL to an international delegation in upstate New York, where, despite his lack of special skills, he ends up playing a key role in trying to foil the diabolical plot. Morrow keeps the action moving, and Hart is an entertaining lead well-positioned to sustain a series. Readers will look forward to his next outing. (BookLife)