The Taiwan situation spiraling dangerously out of control, the US navy in the area is placed on high alert.

America facing the aggressor implies to China that it won’t back down and a state of war between the two countries is imminent. A rogue element in the Chinese government manages to activate its ICBM system, targeting missiles at cities all over the United States. Having developed "Star Wars"–the Strategic Defence Initiative–America possesses a protective "IronDome" laser guided defence system safeguarding the Land of the Free.

US defence works brilliantly – nearly all of the nuclear missiles are destroyed. One, however, gets through the cordon targeted at Washington DC. Sitting in a bunker below the White House with his cabinet, President Paul Marín frets over the impending loss of his countrymen’s lives and plots retaliation. The bomb explodes, its mushroom cloud of doom climbing into the sky. Washington citizens have finally met their Armageddon. But then something happens.

There is no nuclear fall-out: No heat and no radiation!

This physical impossibility throws the American government into paroxysms of suspicion. Did part of their defense system somehow affect the bomb causing it to malfunction? This and other theories having been chewed over, are rapidly discarded. Once a nuclear bomb explodes it can’t not detonate.

Into this mêlée comes Jack who elects to take a stroll during the centre of the nuclear storm. Watched on television by millions, people are fascinated by the man’s apparent sangfroid. Victim of a hit and run accident, does he know something they don’t? Subsequently involved in the resuscitation of two power workers who should have lost their lives due to a city-wide electrical malfunction, Jack’s profile continues to rise when he saves twenty-eight men buried underground in a West Virginian mining disaster.

Disturbed by the nuclear attack on their country, the US public begin to wonder if some greater power than mammon didn’t have a hand in removing the nuclear fall-out and Jack is seen as some kind of potential savior. Marín and his government ride the issue but for religious communities, Jack being around poses a lot of questions. If he is some deific character might he not expose any one of their faiths to be false or inaccurate? None of them can accept this but what are they to do?

Nuclear angel or prophet–Jack never purports to being anything other than someone who is in a particular place at a particular time. Not regarding himself as being chosen or in any way special–if he has talents and a power to heal, he doesn’t know why he was selected or how he came to possess them. But the controversy he causes poses society fundamental questions. Is mankind up to facing these issues or will it want to destroy the one person who seems to offer a less selfish approach to life?

This timely novel, Chimera is a gripping story of salvation and duplicity.

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About Barney Broom:

Having worked in the film industry for many years as an award-winning writer/director Barney Broom has written several published novels including the hilarious Haute Cuisines, and the acclaimed Podric Moon series.

He is a Member of the British Academy of Film & Television Arts BAFTA and Member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain.

Barney's books cover a wide range of novels spanning key events in history, as well as tackling fictional themes in a hilarious way.