This second in the Lana Elkins series by Thomas Waite again focuses not just on cybercrime but on cyberwar. That's when malicious hackers don't just target your bank account, they target your nation's water supply or electricity network. TRIDENT CODE follows LETHAL CODE, which looked at a possible first cyberattack on the United States.

The powerful story opens with an engineer and inventor returning home to find his wife and children held by gunmen. They force him to hand over the details of his latest creation, which can remove carbon from the atmosphere and help turn it into fuel. No mad scientist, he'd thought his life was going great and had signed a secrecy deal with one oil firm. He suspects another oil firm is behind the brutal threat.

Lana Elkins, cyber security specialist, is working on the issue of nuclear powered Russian icebreakers in the Arctic Sea when news is sent to her that hackers have taken over an American Trident submarine, poisoning the crew. As this sub is armed with nuclear warheads she gets straight to work to see who could be behind the foul deed. Her teenage daughter Emma isn't impressed: Mom's missing her concert again.

Crime really is global, and it can occur anywhere a computer security can be breached. Personnel are all too fragile with habits like gambling, and passwords or codes can be broken with decryption programs using today's super-fast hardware. Climate change and sea level rise are to the fore, with the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a terrorist target which will affect most of the densely populated areas of the world. The Russians expect to be high and dry. Is it too late for a terrified Russian hacker to get help and save her little daughter?

Nobody can accuse Thomas Waite of thinking small, so if you're looking for a fast, awe-inspiring thriller brimming with cybercrime, environmental disaster, and human dilemmas, the only question about TRIDENT CODE is - can you think big enough?