A tour de force of suspense, Shock Wave is the tense tale of a female reporter who, on assignment in a midwestern university town, finds she has stepped into an environment fused for violence After two decades of covering riots, assassinations, and urban decay, Kate Osborn comes to Venice, Illinois, to profile Steve Higgins, an old-school Chicago-style politician. Although Higgins hews to tradition, the problems in Venice are thoroughly modern. Student unrest roils beneath the quiet surface of the university, kept in check only by the well-armed campus police, and in town, the white merchants and black coal miners are preparing to go to war. It takes all of Higgins's strength to keep the town in check—but two shocking murders tip the balance. Kate came to interview a politician, but she is about to get a firsthand look at a war zone right in the middle of America's heartland.