POINT OF ENTRY

A corrupt Syrian ambassador, a Colombian drug cartel, a scheme to secret several kilos of nuclear material into the United States—it’s just the sort of thing to keep a Homeland Security head up all night.

Unfortunately, Schechter’s limp debut thriller won’t likely do the same for readers. With the help of a CIA operative and a Pakistani nuclear scientist, Omar bin Talman has gotten his hands on a pile of highly enriched uranium. His plan? To build a bomb to use on U.S. soil. His problem? How to get it there. Enter Juan Francisco Abdoul, a Colombian drug lord eager to employ his family’s smuggling know-how in an attempt to bring down his political rival, Colombia’s first female president and former Miss Universe, Marta Pradilla (not just smart—she’s a hottie, too!). Meanwhile, Pradilla’s counterpart to the north, taciturn American president John Stockman, is trying to decide just what to make of this Latin lady and her great gams. As the pair slowly grow wise to bin Talman’s plot, the questions start coming fast and furious. How will Abdoul move the material to America? How can he be stopped without causing an international panic? Will the fallout rip apart Pradilla’s presidency? And, hey, what’s that glint in the stolid Stockman’s eye, anyway? Could it be . . . love?

Hilarious, but, alas, unintentionally so.