Back in the late twentieth century, media stories speculated about how organized crime or terrorist organizations could acquire enriched uranium and plutonium by hijacking trucks transporting it around the country. Stolen bomb-grade nuclear material could then be turned into atomic bombs by terrorist countries or terrorist organizations. The Atomic Energy Commission, which later became the Department of Energy, reacted to the critic's concern by beefing up security of storage sites and transportation of these materials, and the media stories disappeared. 


But we are no longer in the twentieth century, and my techno-thriller, PERILOUS PANACEA, is about how the U.S. Department of Energy’s “invulnerable” twentieth century nuclear security is breached by twenty-first century computer technology and ratchets terrorism to new heights. 

Following an Israeli raid on Iran’s nuclear weapons complex, an American computer genius approaches an Iranian agent with an ingenious computer-driven plan to hijack trucks carrying uranium and plutonium that will then be used to build the atomic bombs within the United States. To manufacture the bombs, an Iranian expatriate scientist is blackmailed and two U.S. scientists are kidnapped. They know they must escape to stop the plan—escape or die. Meanwhile, chaos in the corridors of power in Washington hinders the FBI pursuit of the missing nuclear material.

PERILOUS PANACEA refers to the dichotomy of modern nuclear science:  the panacea of nuclear reactors providing unlimited energy without the pollution inherent in fossil-fired power plants, and the perils of nuclear weapons and the destruction and chaos they create for the world.

Fast-paced and all-too-possible, PERILOUS PANACEA a nuclear thriller for the twenty-first century!

Dr Ronald Klueh, Author of PERILOUS PANACEA