On January 21, 1968 a B-52 Boeing Stratofortress, carrying four 1.1 megaton H-Bombs, caught fire and crashed in the Arctic Circle near Thule, Greenland. The Strategic Air Command's (SAC) Arctic Circle route was an airborne alert operation, referred to by the pilots of these large bombers as the "Chrome Dome," and was a 24-hour round-the-clock strategic undertaking. Carrying four 1.1 megaton H-Bombs, the B-52's were ready on a moment's notice to wage all-out warfare on an enemy that dare provoke an attack. The "official" response by the United States was that all four H-bombs were destroyed on impact but theorist have long maintained that one of the bombs survived the crash and lies on the seabed off Greenland near Thule airbase. 34 years later, the lost bomb that America has always denied existed, has been found – snagged by a fisherman's net – setting off alarms deep in the bowels of the most fortified structure known to mankind – the CIA. Although the United States is eager to avoid a crisis in relations with its NATO ally Denmark there is more at stake than NATO relations: America is secretly mining raw plutonium in the area and conducting its most clandestine operation in the history of the United States – National Missile Defense. In a remarkable depiction of clandestine adventure, North Star Bay weaves men, submarines, individual acts of heroism, moments of tragedy and unimaginable endurance into an intricate spellbinding story. Richard Thompson entered the literary field in 1999 when he wrote The Tiger Cruise, his first novel. The Tiger Cruise is a captivating story about a nuclear attack submarine, the USS Woodbridge, that leaves Norfolk, VA on a routine tiger cruise only to find itself faced with preventing Iraq from unleashing an anthrax attack on America. In a strange twist, the story portrayed in the book, now borders on prophecy.Richard's latest page-turner, North Star Bay, a gut-wrenching thriller about America's National Missile Defense program sees the return of Knox Jones, the CIA wizard in The Tiger Cruise who is now Director of the CIA in this, his newest thriller.Richard, a Navy veteran, is married and lives in Maryland.
