The Trident Deception

"The best submarine novel since Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October." —Booklist (starred review) The USS Kentucky—a Trident ballistic missile submarine carrying a full complement of 192 nuclear warheads—is about to go on a routine patrol. Not long after it reaches the open sea, however, the Kentucky receives a launch order. After receiving that launch order, it is cut off from all counter-orders and disappears into the Pacific while it makes the eight-day transit to the launch site. What the Kentucky's crew doesn't know is that those launch orders haven't actually come from the U.S. government. Rogue elements within the Mossad have learned that Iran has developed its first nuclear weapon and, in ten days, will detonate it—and the target is Israel. The suspected weapon complex is too far underground for conventional weapons to harm it, and the only choice is a pre-emptive nuclear strike. With limited time, this rogue group initiates a long-planned operation called the Trident Deception. They'll transmit false orders and use a U.S. nuclear submarine to launch the attack. In this thriller from Rick Campbell, with only 8 days before the Kentucky is in launch range and with the submarine cut off from any outside communication, one senior officer, the father of one of the officers aboard the submarine, must assemble and lead a team of attack submarines to find, intercept and neutralize the Kentucky before it can unknowingly unleash a devastating nuclear attack.

In Rick Campbell's next action-packed thriller Deep Strike, the U.S. Atlantic fleet is in a race to stop a rogue Russian submarine—funded by ISIS—en route to launch a missile attack against the east coast of the U.S. A shoulder-launched missile attack on a convoy of vehicles leaving the U.N. headquarters in New York kills several diplomats, including the American ambassador. Security footage reveals that the killer behind the attack is a disgraced former special forces operative, Mark Alperi. But before U.S. intelligence operatives can catch up with him, Alperi is already onto the next phase of his plan. With funding from the nearly shattered ISIS, Alperi plans an attack on the U.S. that will be more devastating than 9/11. He bribes a desperate Russian submarine commander with access to an expensive experimental drug for his daughter who is suffering from a rare disease. In exchange, the Russian commander will take his submarine to the Atlantic Ocean and launch a salvo of missiles at various targets along the East Coast of the United States. The commander lies to his crew that it's a secret mission, with dummy missiles, for a training exercise. At the same time, unbeknownst to the commander, Alperi has arranged for four of the missile warheads to be replaced with four surplus nuclear warheads and arms them. When the Russian submarine sinks the U.S. sub that is tracking it, the U.S. military is alarmed. When Intelligence uncovers Alperi's plot, though, it becomes a race against time—find the Russian sub and sink it before it can launch a devastating nuclear attack.

In Rick Campbell’s newest thriller, a military coup in Russia leads to a swift invasion of former Soviet territories—while the U.S. has been rendered powerless to respond. In Russia, the military is anxious to assert its military strength and regain its role as a superpower. The Russian President refuses to greenlight a bold plan to disable American strategic nuclear capability and retake Ukraine and the Baltic States, fearing the potential consequences of involving nuclear weapons. But the generals won't have it and at the first opportunity, they overthrow the president in a military coup. Then they use a narrow window to initiate their bold plan—the Zolotov option—which will render all of America's B2 bombers and ballistic missiles useless. With the U.S. off the board, they swiftly invade Ukraine with an overwhelming force, an invading Army that even NATO can't hope to resist. Now, it's game on. Without their primary weapons, the U.S. has to find a way to fight back on multiple fronts. If they're to have any chance, they'll have to overcome the malware that has grounded their ballistic missiles and planes, as well as secretly land a SEAL team to help rescue the imprisoned Russian President, and help retake control from the forces that are driving Europe into a continental war. Rick Campbell, one of the finest young military thriller writers, returns with his biggest and boldest novel to date.

After a long, secret military buildup, China launches a swift and deadly attack on Taiwan. But that's only their first move in a much deadlier game. In Rick Campbell's thrilling Empire Rising, Xiang Chenglei, Chinese president and party secretary, has both a problem and a plan. The problem is that China's limited supply of oil is threatening to derail its economic growth and prosperity. Having failed to win access to a greater supply diplomatically, he sets his backup plan in motion. And what is war, but diplomacy by other means? The U.S. Pacific Fleet is the major military force in the area, and when Taiwan is invaded, the fleet is sent in to repel the invading Chinese forces. The U.S. military expects it to be an easy operation, but after a decades-long, top-secret buildup, China has military capabilities far greater than the United States is aware of. With hidden batteries of long range missiles, advanced cyber warfare capabilities, and a submarine fleet wielding a secret weapon, China is able to overwhelm the American fleet. In fact, China all but wipes out the U.S. Pacific Fleet—leaving them free to turn to their real objective—invasion and expansion across Asia, starting with the four main islands of Japan. While the Atlantic Fleet surges westward to defend its allies and respond to the destruction of their counterparts, it falls to an unlikely alliance of three people to stop this incursion and prevent an all-but-inevitable global war. National Security Advisor Christine O'Connor has critical information, but she's trapped in Beijing; Captain Murray Wilson, commanding officer of the submarine USS Michigan must somehow infiltrate the Chinese submarine blockade; and Navy SEAL Jake Harrison must lead a strike team into the most hostile of territories with only hours to implement the most daring plan ever.

Russia's new ballistic missile submarine, Yuriy Dolgorukiy, is being deployed on its first patrol while America's newest fast attack submarine, North Dakota, is assigned to trail it and collect intel. As the Russian submarine heads under the polar ice cap, its sonar readings reveal the trailing American sub and cause the Russians to begin a radical, evasive maneuver. This, however, fails and the submarines collide, resulting in damage that sends both to the bottom. The Americans immediately set up a rescue mission, sending a new submarine and a SEAL team to establish an ice camp---Ice Station Nautilus---and stage a rescue. The Russians also send men and material, ostensibly to rescue their own men, but the Russian Special Forces team is also there to take the American base camp and the American sub, leaving no survivors or traces of their actions. As the men in North Dakota struggle to survive, the SEAL team battles for possession of the submarine. Rick Campbell's Ice Station Nautilus is an epic battle above and below the ice, Special Forces against SEALs, submarine against submarine, with survival on the line.

Power Play, a thrilling new Trident Deception short story by Rick Campbell. The Russians have their newest class of nuclear attack submarine and is taking it, K-561 Kazan, on a shakedown cruise. Unbeknownst to them, however, this new submarine is being followed by an American submarine, the USS Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh is to gather any intelligence they can on this new Russian submarine while avoiding detection by the Russians. But what first appears to be the rollout of a new type of submarine, might well be something completely different. Instead the Pittsburgh witness a torpedo firing exercise—and the radical new technology might well not be the submarine, but the torpedo.

Simply told but deeply affecting, in the bestselling tradition of Alice McDermott and Tom Perrotta, this urgent novel unravels the heartrending yet unsentimental tale of a woman who kidnaps a baby in a superstore—and gets away with it for twenty-one years. Lucy Wakefield is a seemingly ordinary woman who does something extraordinary in a desperate moment: she takes a baby girl from a shopping cart and raises her as her own. It’s a secret she manages to keep for over two decades—from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends. When Lucy’s now-grown daughter Mia discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she is overwhelmed by confusion and anger and determines not to speak again to the mother who raised her. She reaches out to her birth mother for a tearful reunion, and Lucy is forced to flee to China to avoid prosecution. What follows is a ripple effect that alters the lives of many and challenges our understanding of the very meaning of motherhood. Author Helen Klein Ross, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, weaves a powerful story of upheaval and resilience told from the alternating perspectives of Lucy, Mia, Mia’s birth mother, and others intimately involved in the kidnapping. What Was Mine is a compelling tale of motherhood and loss, of grief and hope, and the life-shattering effects of a single, irrevocable moment.

Home is where we love, suffer, and learn. Some homes we chose, others are inflicted upon us, and still others are bodies we are born into. In this astounding collection of stories, human and more-than-human worlds come together in places we call home. Four sisters and their mother explore their fears while teeny ghost people dress up in fragments of their children’s clothes. A somewhat-ghost tends the family garden. Deep in the mountains, a shapeshifting mother must sift through her ancestors’ gifts and the complexities of love when one boy is born with a beautiful set of fox ears and another is not. In the wake of her elderly mother’s tragic death, a daughter tries to make sense of the online dating profile she left behind. And a man named Pooka finds new ways to weave new stories into his abode, in spite of his inherited suffering. A startling and beguiling story collection, Glorious Frazzled Beings is a love song to the homes we make, keep, and break.