The terrorist next door

de Sheldon Siegel

Someone is setting off fire bombs in Chicago in stolen cars using untraceable cell phones. The international terror channels are silent. A group calling itself the Islamic Freedom Federation demands the release of Hassan Al-Shahid, a graduate student whose plan to set off a bomb at the Art Institute was thwarted by Detective David Gold and his long-time partner, Detective Paul Liszewski. Gold, a third generation native of South Chicago, the hardscrabble neighborhood of steel mills, smokestacks, and steeples near the Indiana border, is one of Chicago's most decorated detectives. He is still suffering from the aftereffects of Liszewski's death when he receives a Medal of Valor at the Art Institute. During the ceremony, a car bomb is detonated across the street, killing a passerby and Gold receives a cryptic text: "It isn't over." It's just the beginning. Untraceable car bombs detonate at the Wrigley Field El station, Millennium Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, O'Hare, Hyde Park, and Rush Street. Chicago PD, the FBI and Homeland Security can't trace the bomber. Gold and his new partner, Detective A.C. Battle--a native of Mississippi whose family moved to Chicago to escape the Jim Crow South--are drawn into a desperate cat-and-mouse game against a brilliant mind.