SETH W. JAMES

A Desperate Measure

June 1, 2024

By Seth W. James

In A Desperate Measure, book 2 of The Cain Series, several months have passed since Cain and Francesca took down the fascist cabal of billionaire Dietrich Stinnes.  Riding the wave of celebrity that her victory had inspired, Francesca stepped down as the Mayor of Venice to join the newly-formed European Seawall Foundation, to shepherd the project she had fought so hard to create, with Cain at her side as her Chief of Security.  What should have been a blissfully dull—though vitally important—assignment soon became as dangerous as any period in their lives, when off-world corporation Black Horizons, Inc. infiltrated the ESF, intent upon diverting a portion of the foundation’s staggering budget to their bottom line—by any means necessary.

Cain must soon return to his roots in corporate crime, to counteract BHI’s attempts to neutralize Francesca.  From circumventing the surveillance-state AI, to battling mercenaries on the streets of Brussels, to hunting corrupt cops through a deserter colony on the Latvian coast, Cain struggles to intercept each new—and increasingly aggressive—threat.  BHI, however, have nothing to lose through violent escalation: they are a sovereign corporation, their orbiting headquarters placing them not only above Earth, but above its laws, as well.

Faced with the crippling effect that BHI’s extortion would have on the seawall project—and with the hundreds of millions who would suffer famine without the new farmlands it would create— Francesca must decide if times have grown desperate enough for a desperate measure.