Meltdown - Paperback

Meltdown is the third novel in the CIA thriller series that details Woody Stressel and Ava Volkov's continued struggle to elude KGB and crime syndicate killers whose goal is to capture the two former undercover agents and methodically remove body parts before killing them. In the first novel, The Oven, Woody and Ava met across a cadaver dissection table at Grantland Medical School where both were embedded undercover agents, Woody for the CIA and Ava for the KGB. Their lives quickly became entwined after Ava put a bullet through the head of a crime syndicate killer who was on the verge of executing Woody.

In the second novel, Out of the Oven and Into the Fire, Woody and Ava seek safety in the Texas Trans-Pecos desert at the well-armed compound that Woody's psychotic Uncle Wilbur had built to protect himself from supposed Nazi agents. But when Woody and Ava arrive, they find that the only person at the compound is Leta, an inhospitable 16-year-old runaway girl who has escaped from being held captive at a desert whorehouse. Leta has a Mensa-plus IQ, a sharp tongue, and a quick trigger finger. Woody's crazy uncle is mysteriously missing.

Meltdown, the third novel, introduces new characters to the compound, including Ellie Edwards, a former Army sharpshooter, and Captain Fred Whitley, a Pentecostal Army chaplain. Ellie arrives with two highly trained Belgian Malinois guard dogs with a penchant for dismembering bad guys. Uncle Wilbur had spent a fortune building the elaborate compound with secret rooms and lethal booby traps. The inhabitants of the compound are as likely to be blown to smithereens by Wilbur's sophisticated booby traps as to be captured and killed by KGB agents or hired criminal assassins. There is action aplenty in Meltdown with a deluge of explosions and firepower. The ending is impossible to predict.