Gary Smith

Controlled Burn Gary Smith

WORST. MONDAY. EVER.

First Marcy's car burns to the ground, then Carsten and Marcy's house burns to the ground, then the insurance company suspects them both of being complicit. Within two days they find themselves with not much more than two backpacks of clothes and each other. Sitting in a cheap hotel in a bad neighborhood, they wonder what to do next and where to go next, but most of all, they wonder how the "hearts afire" tattoos appeared on each other's back.

Their lives change rapidly with a knock on the door and a job offer from two men who represent "the organization." Carsten's background as a Navy Operations Specialist and Marcy's analytical eye for details in big data propels them undercover into the world of defense contracting and global defense systems. They quickly learn that national security is sometimes secondary to personal thirst for power and riches and that there are those who will let nothing-and no one-stand in the way of achieving those goals.

Controlled Burn is a novel by two authors who have a combined forty-plus years experience in the defense industry and military service. Their experience provides the backdrop, taking the reader on a fast-paced, what-if journey where powerful people make decisions guided by the greed and mistrust that permeate life inside the military industrial complex of the book's fictional world.