Trace Crane is the control room supervisor at Bear Mountain Energy Center, the nuclear power plant which supplies energy to most of New York City and the surrounding areas. He's been married for 15 years to Avi, his beautiful wife, and they have a sweet 4-year-old named Brooklyn. However, things aren't as rosy as they once were. Trace and Avi have lost the connection they once had, and although Avi is quite fulfilled in her consulting business on clean energy, she has been through several devastating health issues over the last few years and she blames the nuclear plant for her woes. This constant argument about her wanting to move further away only drives the wedge between them further. Then the unthinkable happens.
A massive earthquake hits their hometown of Peekskill, NY while Trace is at work, Brooklyn is at summer school, and Avi is doing some last minute grocery shopping before they head to a friend's beach house for the weekend. Despite having to worry about his wife and child, whom he can't reach because cell service is down, Trace and his crew must race to bring the temp of the reactor down before it goes into complete meltdown. To compound matters, Avi can't reach Trace and she can't find her daughter because her school was evacuated to any number of hospitals and shelters.
As Avi searches frantically for Brooklyn amid terrible destruction, Trace finds his hands are tied at every turn because the governor is pressuring his plant manager and also his company CEO not to allow them to vent potentially radioactive steam, because it is frightening the locals. When his options are taken away, Trace will have to go to extremes to keep the plant from blowing, but at what cost?
I found Meltdown to be a pretty good natural disaster thriller and I will say that it didn't end as I expected. It's not the best book I've ever read, but it was good enough that I found myself reading it in just a few sittings and would make a fairly good beach read. It does seem to be slanted against nuclear power and I did find myself wandering a bit when it started getting into the more detailed facets of the workers stemming a nuclear tragedy, but it's still worth a read if you like natural disaster stories.
