Resistant

Members of a secret group founded in the early 1940s, the Society of One Hundred Neighbors, believe that entitlements begun under F.D.R. are dooming the U.S. to bankruptcy and moral decay in the less-than-convincing third Dr. Lou Welcome thriller (after 2013’s Political Suicide) from bestseller Palmer, who died in 2013. Readers soon learn that the society was behind the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993—and that its goal was the “erosion of the public’s confidence in the head of the House Armed Services Committee that would lead to his resignation.” The Neighbors have now set their sights higher. They intend to use a devastating new strain of bacteria completely resistant to any known treatment to extort an end to New Deal policies like Social Security. Saving the world comes down to an unlikely pair of heroes—an FBI agent who survived a shot to the head, and Welcome, who has struggled with alcohol and amphetamine dependence. Characters’ reactions to events are often as unbelievable as the events themselves. 125,000-copy first printing. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (May)