Nearshore : A Novel

“An exceptionally thoughtful literary thriller. In the depth and breadth of its story, in the lyricism of its prose, Nearshore will surely establish Steve Hawk as a writer to be reckoned with.”
—Kem Nunn, author of Tapping the Source, Dogs of Winter, and Tijuana Straits

“Nearshore is the best novel of homegrown nuclear terrorism yet written, chillingly credible, terrifying, and all too plausible.”
—Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

A churning mix of literary suspense and coastal noir—where the clash between land and sea unearths Silicon Valley’s darkest secret, and three people must reckon with all that is at stake in an age shadowed by greed, totalitarianism, and nuclear terror.

Daybreak. West Virginia. A “small” nuclear bomb detonates beside an Appalachian highway. The weapon’s explosive yield is meager, the death count blessedly low. And yet: It is history’s first act of nuclear terrorism, and it threatens to tilt the world beyond reckoning.

Months later, surfer and lifeguard Jamie Palmer is patrolling his domain, a treacherous stretch of wild California coast, when he responds to a mysterious nearshore boating accident that jettisoned two people overboard. The victims turn out to be Palmer’s best friend—a brilliant, renegade Stanford University professor—and the man’s teenage son, Luca. The professor drowns, Luca survives—leaving Palmer as the boy’s guardian.

Soon after, Chelsea Wu, a math prodigy and doctoral student, confides to Palmer that she and the professor unearthed a link between a Silicon Valley megacorporation, its sociopathic billionaire founder, and the nuke in West Virginia. When a second device is detonated, this unlikely team—the surfer, the orphan, and the math whiz—must persuade investigators that the bombmakers are not only homegrown but also hiding in plain sight.

An immersive and disturbingly plausible debut, Nearshore delivers a mix of literary suspense and coastal noir. Moving with the speed of a barreling wave, Nearshore also explores deeper clashes: isolation versus community and family, Silicon Valley versus humanity, words versus action, land versus sea.