The devil's light - Richard North Patterson

August 2011. An Al Qaeda operative masterminds the theft of a Pakistani military weapon: a two-hundred-pound nuclear warhead, capable of causing destruction on an unprecedented scale.

A chilling transmission is then broadcast to the world, promising a major attack on a US city to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Intelligence indicates that the bomb has been smuggled out of Pakistan and is en route to the US, with Washington or New York the likely target. Yet this information is but an elaborate decoy and, as the CIA focuses on thwarting a domestic attack, the weapon moves ever closer to its true target.

Agent Brooke Chandler senses the deception. Chandler, a once-prodigious field operative ravaged by the memories of loved-ones lost, thinks he understands how the bomb is being transported, and has an idea how to locate it. First he must convince his superiors of his conviction, and then, before it is too late, find and disable the threat.

If he fails, millions will die, and the world map as we know it will become a collector's item.