No Safe Place - Steven M. Roth

                No Safe Place is a thriller from the Trace Austin series written by Steven M. Roth. It opens with the President of the United States making the decision to infect vacation hot-spot Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a virus that quickly infects and often kills the citizens, thus imposing a quarantine on the area. This is all done as an experiment to see what would happen and how people would react should it happen for real in a terrorist attack. Blaming the sickness on terrorists, the United States government imposes martial law on Fort Lauderdale and life for the citizens quickly turns into a situation of eat or be eaten. Trace, his wife, son and Nanna happen to be visiting the area and end up in the Quarantine Zone. Trace previously worked for the government as a computer hacker and an elite soldier so he starts trying to find out what is really going on while trying to also get his family out of the area.

                This is a very fast paced story and one that was almost scary due to the fact it could very well happen, considering how things are in our world today. The author’s viewpoint of how people would react seems very accurate and the situation of martial law at a resort town was very realistic. The author seems to have put a lot of thought into how life would be under restrictions of this type and the fear that people would feel, making them act irrationally. There are quite a few characters but Mr. Roth does an excellent job of introducing each one and giving them back stories that differentiate them from each other. They are all multi-dimensional and realistic and there are a variety of personalities, each acting differently under the circumstances. It is quite interesting how different types of people deal with the stress of such a situation.

                I loved this book and the action and thrill factors made it hard to put down. It is a fast and easy read. I read this book in digital format and it formatted well. Editing is also done well. The cover is typical of the thriller novels out today so it didn’t really sway my decision to read the book one way or the other.