The Seventh Effect, by Terence Kuch, is published by Melange Publishers (www.melange-books.com). It is available in paperback or Kindle formats at Amazon, or directly from the publisher.
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Duane Rondo, disgraced high-ranking police official, now runs a top-secret anti-terrorist operation near Washington, D.C. Rondo and his cybercops have a license to find out everything--about everyone. Performing a routine vetting of Sybille Haskin, a Cabinet nominee, he discovers that she has a totally unblemished record.
“No one’s perfect,” he says, “But Haskin is perfect. Never an overdue library book. Never a parking ticket. Nothing. What the hell?”
“I just don’t believe in perfection,” Rondo says. “If perfection is possible, then the rest of us are crooks and sinners. And our rationale for letting our quota of blunders just slide by is gone. If she’s 100% clean, then all the rest of us are dirty. Guilty. Worthy to lose our jobs, our lives, maybe our country. Just what the Enemy wants,” he says, referring to an even more dangerous successor to Al-Qaida.
Rondo suspects that Haskin’s data has been scrubbed clean, perhaps by the Enemy. Driven by his need to know that no one is perfect, Rondo intervenes personally in the Haskins investigation, meets her under false pretenses, becomes involved with her, and himself becomes a target of a conspiracy that is, with or without her knowledge, determined to get her into the government by any means needed.
“No one’s perfect,” he says, “But Haskin is perfect. Never an overdue library book. Never a parking ticket. Nothing. What the hell?”
“I just don’t believe in perfection,” Rondo says. “If perfection is possible, then the rest of us are crooks and sinners. And our rationale for letting our quota of blunders just slide by is gone. If she’s 100% clean, then all the rest of us are dirty. Guilty. Worthy to lose our jobs, our lives, maybe our country. Just what the Enemy wants,” he says, referring to an even more dangerous successor to Al-Qaida.
Rondo suspects that Haskin’s data has been scrubbed clean, perhaps by the Enemy. Driven by his need to know that no one is perfect, Rondo intervenes personally in the Haskins investigation, meets her under false pretenses, becomes involved with her, and himself becomes a target of a conspiracy that is, with or without her knowledge, determined to get her into the government by any means needed.
