Back Out in the Cold

If my memory serves correctly, some brilliant scribe with the Chicago Tribune (yes, both he and it are still around) once said that Peter Schecter’s first novel, Point of Entry (2006), was “as good as this kind of writing gets.” If anything, though, Schecter’s latest book, Pipeline, is even more thrilling. Here’s the synopsis:

A new Cold War has arrived, posing deep threats to our national security. Country after country is bending to the will of a newly resurgent Russia willing to use its vast natural gas reserves as a foreign policy sword. Suddenly, the United States too finds itself needing energy from an increasingly hostile Russia. And only a handful of unsuspecting insiders can save America from ruthless Moscow oligarchs that seek to ensnare our country into ever-deeper energy dependence.

In a small apartment, in the middle of a damp D.C. summer night, Tony Ruiz, special assistant to the president, gets a phone call from the White House. Blackouts in California are causing panic, the electric fences at the prison in Sacramento have powered down and prisoners are escaping, California is being plunged into a hellish nightmare ...

In a hotel room in Germany, the brilliant and feared American environmental activist Blaise Ryan is relieved to be away from the steady deterioration in her home state of California. A heated dinner argument with a powerful Russian energy executive lays bare the new alignments of world power ...

Way to go, Peter.