So far, the 2016 US presidential election has borne an eerie similarity to the plot of my book, The Lafayette Campaign, A Tale of Deception and Elections. Totally improbable candidates have shot to the top of the polls, and then succeeded in the Iowa caucuses. Which raises an interesting question: would you rather think that an election could be hacked, or that Americans really would vote in droves for someone like Donald Trump? If that’s too depressing a question to confront, you can escape from that disquieting reality for a few minutes by seeing how the New Hampshire primary unfolds in my book instead. Here goes.
I'm happy to report that the launch of my second cybersecurity thriller, titled The Lafayette Campaign, a Tale of Deception and Elections, of off to a great start in a couple of ways. First, and most eerily, the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential campaign polls is straight out of the plot (how do I keep doing this?) And second, the first reviews are coming in every bit as favorably as I could have hoped. Below are some shortened versions that will give you an idea what the book is about, and what people think of it.
Well, it really is a great feeling to push that final “submit” button after you’ve uploaded the cover, the file, and all of the metadata and other information that Amazon asks for. And behold – only an hour later, my second book, titled The Lafayette Campaign, a Tale of Deception and Elections, magically appeared on line. What a great feeling.
Now, don't everyone just run out and order it at the same time. Well, ahem, on the other hand, who's stopping you?
The old line about the joys of boating holds that an owner’s two happiest days are when he buys a boat and when he sells it. An author feels the same way about a book, although you have to up the number of happy days to three: the day the author sits down to write a book and realizes that it’s probably going to work, the day the finished work is actually out there for sale, and in between, the day that the actual writing and editing part is finally, actually (really!) done. Thank goodness, that day finally arrived for me on Saturday.
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
First the engine of the minibus died, and then the lights. In the sudden darkness, Frank’s light-bedazzled eyes could see nothing, leaving him temporarily immobilized. He heard the door to the VW open and close quietly. And then, a quiet voice from a shadowy figure by his side.
“Hello, Frank. How have you been?”
“Fine. And you?”
He heard a familiar, musical laugh. “I suppose I have some explaining to do, yes?”
“Yes, Josette, I suppose you do.”
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
Frank closed the back door of his camper behind him and peered carefully around its corner. There had been no room for a vehicle his size in the motel’s main lot when he arrived, so he’d found it necessary to park in an overflow lot beyond the pool area. Only a few cars and pickup trucks shared the lot with him now, one of which must hold the person who was helping himself to Frank’s wireless connection.
But no one could be seen in any of the vehicles nearby. Some were at odd angles, though, and the faint glow of a laptop might not be visible, especially if someone was being careful to avoid detection. He’d have to walk around the lot and try to get a better angle to tell for sure. Suddenly he felt insecure; how many of those pickup trucks had gun racks in their cabs, he wondered? Maybe it wasn’t so important after all to know who the hacker was.
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
Okay, so maybe you haven't bought my book. But that's not Frank's fault, so I couldn't just leave him stranded in the midwest, could I?
Frank shook his head in disbelief as he turned his radio off. Who could have predicted that talking heads on the evening news would ever look to Fidel Castro to provide a cogent assessment of an American primary season? Frank might be having a hard time starting a non-fiction book about cybersecurity, but thank goodness he hadn’t set out to write a satire about this bizarre election season. How would you parody a parody? All you could do would be to quote the actual candidates. Anyway, that wasn’t his problem.
What he was wrestling with at the moment was what to do when he got to Iowa. Heading to where the political action was had seemed like a great idea when he first turned east. It wasn’t until he crossed into Colorado that it occurred to him that a caucus state would offer next to no opportunities for a hacker to corrupt the voting results.
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller.
As you may have noticed, last Monday passed without my posting a new chapter of The Lafayette Deception. I’d like to explain why, and also invite you to reflect on the role that the consumer of creative work will play in the future of writing.
The fundamental question comes down to this: will writers be able to make a living in the future from their craft, and if not, what will the quality and variety of writing be like?
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
Frank looked hungrily at the establishments on both sides of the main drag of Cedar City, Utah. He’d lost eighteen pounds, and it was payback time.
It had been early that morning, before sunrise, that he had left his campsite on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Now it was almost Noon, and he was a third of the way through Utah and had waited long enough. Impatient drivers swung around him as he motored slowly up the street, compiling a mental list of every restaurant, bakery, ice cream store and other variety of food emporium he encountered along the way.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
“That’s right, Vicky. Simple as that. So can you guys take it from here?”
“Sure thing, Frank. No problem, and great work!”
In fact, it hadn’t been great work that had finally allowed him to crack the mystery of the flipping poll numbers. Just greater attention to detail. Once he had spotted the few extra bytes of code in the server’s time check code he knew that he’d found the chink in the system’s armor that the hacker had exploited. After that, it had been relatively easy to figure out what happened next.
Settling back in his chair, he stared out across the magnificent void of the Grand Canyon, and then smiled wryly. Not quite a perfect metaphor for his state of mind, but it would do. He felt good about cracking the problem he had been tasked to solve, yes, but now what? Suddenly he was at loose ends again, with nothing to fill his time except the fading goal of writing a book.