Dead Hand

He helped build the machine that could end the world. Now he may be the only man who can stop it. At the height of the Cold War, Soviet engineer Dmitri Yarynich is drawn into one of the Kremlin's most terrifying secrets: Perimeter, the automated nuclear command system the West would come to know as Dead Hand-a system designed to ensure the Soviet Union could retaliate even after its leadership had been destroyed. But when control of the system becomes part of a deadly conspiracy, the safeguards meant to prevent nuclear annihilation begin to unravel. With Soviet hardliners closing in, American intelligence struggling to understand what is happening behind the Iron Curtain, and the threat of an unauthorized launch growing by the hour, Yarynich finds himself trapped between loyalty to his country and the realization that the weapon he helped create could ignite the very war it was designed to prevent. Hunted across a Soviet Union entering the final years of the Cold War, Yarynich must risk everything-including his family-to stop a chain of events capable of pushing Moscow and Washington beyond the point of no return. Blending historical events with fictional characters and a tense espionage narrative, Dead Hand is a Cold War thriller of nuclear brinkmanship, intelligence operations, betrayal, and the men and women caught inside a system where a single mistake could mean the end of civilization. For readers of military thrillers, Cold War espionage, and historically grounded suspense.