by T. J. Newman
First published 2024
At 35,000 feet, a commercial pilot collapses from a heart attack. The airliner plummets into a nuclear power plant in Waketa, Minnesota, triggering an unprecedented disaster. The International Nuclear Event Scale has never recorded a Level 8 incident. Chernobyl and Fukushima were Level 7. This crash creates something worse. Plant workers scramble to contain radiation while firefighters race toward danger instead of away from it. Teachers evacuate schools as families face impossible choices about whether to flee or stay. The accident threatens to become a global catastrophe that could affect all humanity. Ordinary residents of this small Minnesota town must find extraordinary courage to prevent the unthinkable. Their community has become ground zero for a crisis unlike anything the world has seen.
Genres: fiction, adventure, thriller, action, apocalyptic
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: ordinary-people-in-extraordinary-circumstances, race-against-time
Setting: Minnesota, Waketa, United States
Period: 21st Century
336 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: death, violence