TriCoast Energy executive Lynn Dayton is visiting the company’s San Francisco refinery when it comes under attack. Saddened by the fiery deaths of several workers, she traces the explosion to software malfunctions and contacts cybersecurity chief Kanak Singh to track it back to the source. The second law refers to the second law of thermodynamics: it means that in an isolated system everything … tends towards chaos.
Lynn is still reeling when a TriCoast lease bidding manager is killed in New Orleans. The seeming motive is the theft of his computer containing billion-dollar secret offshore bid plans. Then her long-time mentor and good friend is gunned down in front of her in a Louisiana swamp. What terrible plan lies behind all these crimes? Lynn races against time to uncover a complex plot that stretches from murder in Vienna to a natural gas terminal attack in the Baltic to a major Caribbean oil installation off U.S. shores. Lynn is baffled as she learns of a high-stakes takeover bid by a mysterious group called the Second Law. Who are these people? Worse, who is the mole inside TriCoast that is feeding them so much deadly information? Unless she can find out, thousands more are scheduled to die.
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THE SECOND LAW by L.A. Starks is the third book in the Lynn Dayton thriller series. While this novel can be read as a standalone, the series is best read in series order which will provide the reader with some additional background on the characters, the environment and the relationships. The settings for this novel are numerous and include several countries.
Lynn Dayton, a TriCoast Energy executive is visiting the company’s San Francisco refinery when software malfunctions lead to the death of several employees. What caused the software malfunctions? Is this an inside job or did someone hack into their systems or was this a simple coding mistake gone horribly wrong? This is just the beginning of several bad weeks for Lynn and her team as they race to discover answers and hold those responsible accountable.
Lynn is a strong female protagonist in a male dominated industry. She is both technically sound and has the ability to manage through tough situations. In addition to this, she deals with situations many of us face in achieving a work/life balance. Despite set-backs, she meets adversity head-on and doesn’t hide behind others to get the job done.
This is definitely not a fluff thriller. It felt all too believable that at least some of this could happen. While it’s more technical than most, that aspect was nicely interwoven into the plot. It worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a lot about the energy business.
Overall, this is a suspenseful, fast paced, and educational thriller. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
The bottom line: If you enjoy action-packed thrillers with relatable characters, then I recommend you check out this series.
I won a digital copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. Thanks go to Nemaha Ridge Publishing Group, LLC and L.A. Starks for the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date was October 24, 2018.
Ok so this is the first book I have read from L.A Starks and to be completely honest I don’t know what to think of this book. There’s is ALOT going on in this book. I haven’t read the other books in the series. So, I’m sure I don’t have the full understanding of the characters past relationships or history. There were parts where it seemed like I was reading a how-to manual so, I guess in some places it gave a little too much information. This book has industrial espionage, cybercrime, murder, industrial sabotage, and international espionage. I was able to finish the book in a few days. So, it holds your attention. There’s just a lot to follow. But in the end its an ok book. Happy reading everyone!!
I was so looking forward to reading this book and I wanted it to be really great. The sad part is, the story of industrial espionage, cybercrime, murder, industrial sabotage, international espionage, is terrific. The story is well constructed, the dialogue feels natural and the characters are fully developed and three dimensional. So what’s the problem? The problem is, I had no interest in reading an industrial manual on how to run an oil refinery. Believe me, this book included more information on oil refining, gas production, shipping, etc than I EVER wanted to know. And what was even more frustrating is that about the time the story was getting good and I was anxious to see what would happen next, the author would insert one of the above things that I wasn’t interested in. SO frustrating. This could have been a solid 5-star rated book but instead, I struggled to get through it. I really hate it, too, because the thriller portion of the book was amazing. Maybe one of these days I’ll find a book by this author that is strictly. what it professes to be – a murder mystery, thriller, or suspense. If so, I’ll definitely grab it up because it will be a winner. Until then, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.