FROZEN END

His encounter with a strikingly beautiful woman sets off a chain of events that lead professor Sam Baradi to track down the people responsible for the collapse of economies and markets. The accumulation of seemingly unrelated events -- like the meltdown of financial markets, the flare-up of hostilities in Gaza, the tsunami of Internet misinformation, and the flood of anti-Semitic gossip -- threatens to bring the world to a frozen end. Thrust in the middle of this mayhem, Sam’s adventures take him from the splendors of Boston’s waterfront to the snow-capped Swiss Alps and the stunning Mediterranean beaches, as he tries to prevent a nefarious group from pushing mankind past a threshold where an irreversible shift in power would occur. Book Review A suave, intelligent technology analyst combines forces with a beautiful government attorney to combat international terrorism. Sam Baradi has it all - Ivy League degrees, tenure at Cornell University (quite a feat at age 28), a moneyed, international pedigree, and to top it off, killer good looks. So he's excited to meet his match one night at a bar -the stunning Samantha Holzman, whose interests and talents eerily match his own. They quickly discover that they both deal in high-level national security issues, and , as they learn the hard way, both their families are somehow involved. Meanwhile, halfway across the world in a hotbed of Middle Eastern terrorism, a dangerous Islamic seet is plotting an ultimate coup -they plan to undermine the American financial system, which will weaken every major market, so they can snatch up companies and assets at basement-level prices. Unfortunately, the terrorist organization plans to do this via hacking influential financiers' computers, an area in which Sam is supremely skilled. This sets a stage for high-tech, high-stakes global battle that pits the budding couple against a series of devious enemies. All the elements of a good thriller are present and accounted for. The old-world wealth and leading-protagonists' good looks combined with an eager sense of character development add to the action. What Nader does well is paint pictures of evil, both individual and societal. The leader of the terrorist group is a slithering, deviant-eyed tyrant, and he oozes malice. Kirkus Discoveries