The SHIVA Compression

by Tim Queeney

The ultimate doomsday weapon: The top secret SHIVA Compression virus can automatically launch all U.S. nuclear missiles. Once released onto the nation’s communications networks, SHIVA cannot be turned off.

Air Force Lieutenant Perry Helion stumbles across a twisted cult that seeks to use SHIVA to produce an orgy of destruction. Perry and his team have only a few days to somehow stop the SHIVA virus from burrowing into the launch computers at every Minuteman missile base and sending the nuclear warheads arcing skyward to an all-consuming firestorm.

Perry and his colleague and former lover Jan Caplan find one Air Force officer who will listen: Ben Loyola -- a tough, old fireplug colonel who runs the Air Force’s Office of Special Materials. Perry and Jan join Loyola’s crack team, who have repeatedly done what was necessary to recapture stolen Soviet nuclear weapons. Now Loyola and his small group must join Perry to corral the most dangerous enemy yet: the relentless SHIVA Compression, a viral agent designed by the Cold War’s greatest scientists to ensure that even if America is left leaderless by a sudden “decapitation” attack, U.S. missiles will still be fired in retaliation.

A crazed atomic cult revives SHIVA and releases to "cleanse" the earth of non-believers. They will do anything to carry out their insane plan. Perry, Caplan and Loyola must face down doomsday itself to save the world.

383 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2012

About the author

TIM QUEENEY is the former editor of Ocean Navigator, a magazine for offshore voyagers. Tim's work has appeared in Professional Mariner, American History, and Aviation History. He has had short stories published in the crime anthology Landfall, Best New England Crime Stories 2018 and in the speculative anthology A Land Without Mirrors. Tim lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, with his wife and a rescue dog, Frankie. A life-long sailor, he has taught celestial navigation, radar navigation and coastal piloting ashore and at sea — where he tied plenty of knots and handled many a rope.

Preorder my book "Rope - How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization" https://bit.ly/RopeBook

Reviews

[Matt McRoberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good thriller novel surrounding the possible hijacking of U.S. nuclear weapons by a rogue computer program. The story kept me pretty interested throughout and most of the main characters I enjoyed reading about. It did get a little crazy with some of the fighting and confusion between Air Force police people and the special materials people and everything.

Overall a great novel and I will continue reading Tim Queeney and any more Perry Hellion novels that may be coming (i know one is planned at least).

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fasten your seatbelts. This is a high-speed thriller with characters you can care about and some bad guys you can detest. Makes you glad the Cold War is over and hope it stays that way. Definitely a fun read.

[Steve Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the riveting techno-thriller novel, Shiva Compression by Tim Queeney, a complex viral worm has invaded the internet, threatening to take control and launch a first strike of America’s Minuteman missile arsenal at Russia. As the plot explodes with intrigue and adventure from the first page of the novel, a lackluster Lieutenant Perry Helion witnesses a nearly catastrophic accidental launch of a Minuteman missile and soon finds himself and his partner, Lt Jan Caplan, embroiled in the battle to stop the spread of the infectious and stealthy Shiva virus that is spreading throughout the internet and gaining control of the nuclear missile system. As the story unfolds, Helion finds that they are struggling against misguided factions within the Air Force whose perverted aims are to reignite the Cold War and thus rise again to positions of power and influence. In the protagonists’ efforts to save the day, they ironically are pitted against government agents who cannot determine who are the good and who are the bad. Skillfully presenting cyber technology within an action-filled, fast-paced story, Queeney convincingly reveals what a wondrous creation the modern internet is, and yet how vulnerable it and our society are to the age-old evil that forever resides in the hearts of men. “WOW!” It truly is a page-turner.