When the lights go out in the United States and the whole country goes dark, it’s up to Mitch Rapp to once again save the day in the thriller from Kyle Mills.
America’s power grid is always vulnerable, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. After receiving a tip about sensitive information that’s said to hold the key to taking America back into the stone age, the Kremlin activates a sleeper agent to confirm the validity of the report.
Sonya Vance, who has spent most of her life in America, heads to a secluded cabin in West Virginia, where she meets with John Alton, an expert on the power grid who has spent years researching, and even working as a consultant for the government.
Alton, a rich playboy who is tired of not being listened to, is ready to demonstrate that everything he has been telling Congress is real. The United States is primed for an attack, and as it turns out, it’s Alton who has all the resources to do it.
Sonya is confident that Alton could, indeed, crash America’s grid. But ultimately, the Kremlin decides that the plan is too risky and the possibility of a war with the US too high.
Meanwhile, on the seventh floor of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Director Irene Kennedy is alerted of a planned attack on US soil. According to her intelligence reports, someone has offered proof of America’s vulnerabilities on the dark web, and ISIS is willing to team up and help strike a fatal blow to the United States.
On the way to Spain to intercept the ISIS man sent to verify the documents in question, Mitch Rapp and Scott Coleman run a flawless operation that leads them to a planned meeting between Alton and ISIS commandos who are sent to target the power plants that could decapitate America. Unfortunately, a bloody shootout allows Alton to escape, giving him the chance to implement the final steps of his plan.
Regrouping, Rapp, Coleman, and Kennedy plot their next move when disaster strikes and things suddenly go dark.
With the power grid down and government projections grim, Americans panic. Rioting and looting break out as people become desperate and frighten.
While most Americans have become too reliant on technology to know how to live without it, Rapp has spent most of his adult life in third-world countries. The harder the conditions, the more he thrives and while others focus on how to stay alive, Rapp has one goal - to make sure that by the time the lights come back on, the man who turned them off is no longer breathing.
Since taking over for Vince Flynn, this is the sixth book by Kyle Mills as he continues to show his mettle and skill as a thriller writer. While the series has always been timely, Mills took that to another level with Lethal Agent, which was all about a deadly virus that was weaponised to hit the US. Six months later, COVID-19 shut the country down.
Ironically, it’s the real-life pandemic that, in a way, makes
this book so chilling. Prior to COVID, it was hard to imagine what a shut-down America might look like. Now, readers know all too well how that looks and what it feels like, making Total Power both terrifying and entertaining.