title: Svea's Sins
author: Venice, Alexi
description: Alexi Venice's second novel, "Svea's Sins," is a thriller about a 2018 terrorist plot against the United States with nerve gas and drones, perpetuated by a beautiful Swedish woman who partners with the Russian President Vadik Volkov. Venice amps up the action and sophistication in her second novel featuring the brilliant and broken Pepper McCallan, a consultant to the U.S. Counterterrorism Agency. Venice swiftly drives a complex plot that traverses the world, using science and technology that are easily within reach, leveraging the absence of drone regulation. In "Svea's Sins," Pepper McCallan doesn't expect to be needed so urgently by Brent Cahill while she and her husband Bill are island-hopping in the Caribbean in the fall of 2018. But Brent discovers he needs Pepper's help to thwart a terrorist plot on America that incorporates nerve gas, drones and sexual liaisons between world leaders. Venice stakes out her style by weaving romance into thriller terror plots. The reader gets to know Brent Cahill's character as he builds a relationship with the love of his life, Jackie Starr, who is a high-powered CrossFit trainer, by taking her on a vacation to the island of St. Martin. Furthering their counterterrorism success, Brent Cahill and Pepper McCallan unnerve the stunning Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Svea Lovgren, by confronting her at a formal ball in Stockholm. Brent and Pepper consider Svea's twisted motives by analyzing her sexual rendezvous with Russian President Vadik Volkov. As Pepper is drawn deeper into clandestine travel, her husband, Bill McCallan, resumes his career as an orthopedic surgeon at Southview Hospital in Minneapolis. Bill unexpectedly finds himself at the center of a large scale disaster at Southview Hospital that has Svea Lovgren's handprints on it. In this riveting second novel, Pepper continues to enhance her reputation in the Counterterrorism Agency with the President of the United States in a not-so-distant future that proves to be as sinister as it is sentimental. Alexi Venice hits her stride with hotter romance and bioterrorism plots in the third Pepper McCallan novel, "Victus, Part I of Margaret River Winery." It will be available in Winter 2015.