Threat Multiplication – James Litherland

 

 

Blurb:  A perfect storm of trouble is brewing.

Mysterious power outages, disrupted communications, and a rash of illness among the guards are only the beginning. Soon FURC Security Chief Anthony Nelson and his small, mostly inexperienced staff are overwhelmed by the hacking of the local network, the contamination of the food supply, and a seemingly impossible murder. And Lt. Katherine Miles can’t help. She’s far from the FURC on a secret mission and unable to warn them—if she can make it back at all, she’ll be bringing even more trouble with her…

 

 

 

Threat Multiplication picks up right where Critical Contingencies left off, so I would recommend reading this series in order.

There is a bit of grounding information before the story begins properly, which is really useful for setting the scene as to what the FURC is going on (pun, sorry!).

Then straight into the action, with Kat out of the compound on a mission to collect Chief Cameron’s wife and daughters, for delivery to safety in the FURC.  Meanwhile Tony and David are still trying to track down moles, saboteurs and spies from within, as security forces start to mysteriously fall ill and systems begin to glitch and fail.

This book is an action/espionage thriller that focuses on the characters and their futuristic lockdown setting (which feels less sci-fi and more prescient in current times!).  For those reading in order, the core characters are becoming more familiar and developing from when they were initially introduced.  Newcomers may find themselves a little adrift in places, as these are quite sparse, fast-paced stories without a lot of background detail to slow them down.

As tensions build within the FURC compound, and outside its walls, I will be interested to see where James Litherland takes his characters next within their surveilled slow-cooker.  My sneak peek ahead to Book 5 (Political Homicide) tells me that keeping people cooped up, even for their own safety, can be murder…!

 

 

   Anthony frowned for a moment in the dark, but before he had a chance to do anything, the lights came back on.  He grinned and shook his head at himself.  They’d been expecting this.  Someone had to cut off the power someday—he was only surprised that it had taken this long—and now that day had arrived.
The FURCSnet had automatically switched the compound over to the internal power supply.  Now everything was alright, except for all the people annoyed by blinking lights as various systems rebooted.  Though the transition had been smooth enough people shouldn’t be too upset.
Still, he ought to get out and see for himself that everyone was behaving.  Miles hadn’t considered it prudent to broadcast these back-up plans to everybody—and Anthony had no choice but to agree.  Despite the confident assurances he’d given the director, he and his officers had failed to uncover any more moles.
Perhaps there were none to be found.  But just because they’d found no evidence was not proof of their absence.  And Anthony had his suspicions.  So assuming Governor Roberts still had people on the inside, it would be better if only a few people in positions of responsibility knew what was coming.

– James Litherland, Threat Multiplication

 

 

Find more from James Litherland at his website here, or follow him on BookBub and Goodreads.

Threat Multiplication is available on Amazon right now!  Plus you can find my thoughts about other works by the same author here:  Political Homicide; Durable Impressions & Critical Contingencies, Millennium Crash.

 

 

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