The Yellowstone Conundrum

The explosion of the Yellowstone caldera begins with a series of powerful earthquakes that trigger further quakes in the Puget Sound. Ash spews into the Wyoming sky as a tsunami strikes Seattle; hydroelectric facilities on the Snake and Missouri Rivers fail; the Western power grid cascades into darkness all the way to the East Coast. The Columbia Generating Plant goes into meltdown, and Seattle, Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Denver all suffer catastrophic damage.

The Yellowstone Conundrum is a "people" book set against this plausible what-if disaster: Army veteran Ray Spaulding and a handful of office workers fighting off gangs intent on burning the Seattle Public Library; UW professor Denny Cain and graduate student Karen Baker; Olympic skier Penny Armstrong racing to outrun the ash; and long-distance trucker Cameron Hedges, who convinces the town of Wright, Wyoming to pick up and move rather than wait out the end.

The first of a series continued in Scorched Earth and The Lose-Lose Scenario.