Orange Alert — Gretchen Stone

On September 11, 2001, Carla McCarthy lost her college sweetheart and first love during the terrorist attacks on New York City. Her unrelenting grief and outrage for her country leads her to vow to do anything in her power to stop the terrorists. When an obscure government agency recruits Carla to investigate suspected terrorist infiltration of her book club in the Detroit suburb of Montrose she eagerly accepts. As the publisher of a small, hometown newspaper, Carla has numerous ties to a community of affluent, politically active single women, many of whom are long-time members of the book club and personal friends. Carla is dismayed to realize that her covert espionage activities are not as innocuous as she has been led to believe when Renee Martin, a new member of the club and the owner of a local art gallery, disappears on a trip to Paris. Her willingness to report on women's lives and travels to the government eventually jeopardizes the respect and affection of her closest friends and her growing intimacy with former police chief, Nan Lawson. Stretching from the familiar atmosphere of small-town Montrose to the sophistication of Paris and the chaos of the Baghdad Museum at the start of the U.S. and Iraq War, Orange Alert: A Carla McCarthy Adventure plunges Carla and her friends into an unexpected journey which will change their lives forever.