The Best President Money Can Buy

Synopsis of The Best President Money Can Buy

The story begins in the poor Appalachian mining region of Eastern Kentucky using coal mining and the associated FDR New Deal electrification of the Tennessee Valley as the start point. The story evolves to the present day with the competing issues of an aging US power grid and the need for state of the art uninterruptible renewable sources of electric power. Complicating this problem is the future of Kentucky coal and the current vulnerability of existing renewable energy systems to direct interdiction by countries hostile to the United States.  Leading this list of hostile countries is the People's Republic of China (PRC) who have developed an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon targeted to interdict exposed US renewable energy facilities (A true fact by the way).

 

The story develops as a PRC strategy to expand their current large US market for solar power panels (also a true fact), since solar power is especially vulnerable to EMP weapons. The PRC rightly concludes that given the vulnerability of the US power grid if they dominate the solar panel market they would have a means to subjugate the US to their will.

 

The main protagonists in this story are Mr. Jamie Preston, a wealthy industrialist whose Lexington, Kentucky based company has developed an alternative renewable power source that is protected against EMP attack (a system like this does exist), and his fiancé, Ms. Jade Riley, an investigative reporter. The relationship between Preston and Riley parallels the development of the main plot. This relationship begins as an  adversarial one that gradually develops into a love affair as together they discover PRC's intentions.

 

The crime/thriller aspect of the story evolves as PRC operatives threaten Jamie's life and the lives of those closest to him. Their struggle to persevere against the odds, to include clandestine PRC operatives, a female assassin and an unscrupulous family of a US politician whose patriarch has eyes on the White House and is being bribed by the PRC comprise the sub-plots.