What If the Systems We Trust Most Are Already Compromised?

I'm thrilled to announce my upcoming thriller MALWARE, a novel that asks a question that keeps security analysts awake at night: What happens when the infrastructure keeping us alive becomes the weapon used to kill us?

The Premise

When CIA analyst Brynn Keller notices strange patterns in critical infrastructure networks, she's haunted by more than just data anomalies. Eighteen months ago, her sister died during routine surgery when backup generators failed. Now those same systems are showing signs of deliberate compromise—and Brynn's credibility is already damaged from a previous false alarm.

Enter FBI agent Hollis Drummond, investigating impossible crop failures across Kansas farmland. His evidence matches Brynn's cyber patterns too perfectly to be coincidence. Together, they uncover something terrifying: a coordinated Chinese operation to cripple American infrastructure.

The catch? Going public plays directly into their enemy's hands.

Why This Story Now

We live in an age where everything is connected. Your power grid, water treatment, hospital equipment, transportation networks—all running on systems most of us never think about until they fail. MALWARE explores what happens when those invisible threads get cut deliberately.

This isn't science fiction. The vulnerabilities are real. The attack vectors exist. And the people trying to protect us are working against impossible odds with limited resources and political pressure from every direction.

More Than Just a Thriller

At its core, MALWARE is about two damaged people finding each other while the world falls apart around them. Brynn carries the weight of arriving too late to save her sister. Hollis is haunted by the pattern he missed in Afghanistan that cost three soldiers their lives. Both are trying to save everyone they couldn't save before—and discovering that sometimes loving someone means having something worth fighting harder to protect.

It's about the impossible choices security professionals make every day: which systems to defend when you can't defend them all, which communities to protect when resources are finite, how to live with the math that says some people will die no matter what you do.

What to Expect

Authentic tradecraft: Built on real infrastructure vulnerabilities and actual cyber warfare tactics

Relentless pacing: A countdown that accelerates as the protagonists race to stop catastrophe

Moral complexity: No easy answers, no clean victories, and antagonists who aren't monolithic villains

Earned intimacy: A relationship that develops through shared crisis, professional respect, and the recognition of mutual damage

Sensory immersion: From the fluorescent buzz of operations centers to the cold air of Kansas wheat fields to the smell of burned coffee and stress in the FBI command room

Coming Soon

MALWARE will challenge you to think differently about the systems you depend on and the people who defend them. It will make you uncomfortable. It might make you check your emergency supplies.

But mostly, I hope it will remind you that behind every threat assessment and defensive protocol, there are real people making impossible decisions—and sometimes finding unexpected connection in the darkness.

Stay tuned for updates on publication date, cover reveal, and early reader opportunities.

In the meantime, maybe check when your smoke detector batteries were last changed. Just saying.

Want to be the first to know when MALWARE releases? Follow me on social media or sign up for my newsletter at MarcWisdom.com. I'll be sharing exclusive excerpts, behind-the-scenes research notes, and interviews with the security professionals who inspired this story.

And if you work in cybersecurity or critical infrastructure protection—I see you. This one's for you.