When the smallest machines learn to fly, the truth has to outrun them.
Dr. Victor Hale built micro-systems to save lives. What he didn't see-until it was almost too late-was how a secret consortium had weaponized his breakthroughs into Dustwings: swarms of grain-sized drones that can watch without being seen, pierce skin with engineered toxins, and erase evidence in a whisper of flame. Inside Helios, the glossy biotech giant fronting the operation, the line between research and covert war has already vanished.
Eliza Marlowe, an investigative reporter with a talent for finding the fracture in any story, collides with Victor the night a source's "breadcrumb" transmission lands on her desk. Special Agent Michael Kearney has been mapping this shadow economy for years; he recognizes in Victor and Eliza the only leverage left-a scientist who knows the machinery and a journalist who won't look away.
As betrayals stack and bodies fall, the trio races from Boston boardrooms to European safe houses, unspooling a global plot that treats cities as test beds and civilians as data points. Victor is forced to torch his own life's work to stop what it has become. Eliza risks her career-and her heart-to bring the truth into daylight. Together, they draw the Veil Consortium into the open...knowing that once the ash settles, someone will try to make these wings fly again.
Autorentext
Scott Hamele is a Kansas-born author whose work spans historical fiction, modern thrillers, and sci-fi comedy with adult humor. A Salina native living in the Kansas City area since 1991, he writes stories rooted in family history and American folklore. His books include Dust and Honor-The Story of Peter Cornelius; The Petticoat Butcher-The Pinkertons' Hunt for Jimmy Ward; Capone's North Road; Dustwings-Black Ops; and Area 51-1/2: Cosmic Misfits. His newest novel, Hanna's Room-Secrets Sealed Since 1942: A Novel of Nazi-Occupied Paris, is a deep dive into the atrocities the Nazis inflicted on Paris's Jewish community and the secrets that endured for decades. Across genres-from 19th-century epics to present-day thrillers and comedic sci-fi-Hamele's range is wide and distinctive.