The Lightning Rod
Zig and Nola are back--in the hugely entertaining, highly anticipated follow-up to Brad Meltzer's #1 New York Times bestselling thriller The Escape Artist.
Archie Mint has led a charmed life--he's got a beautiful wife, two impressive kids, and a successful military career. When he's killed while trying to stop a robbery in his own home, his family is shattered--and then shocked when the other shoe drops. Mint's charmed life, so perfect on the surface, held criminal secrets none of them could have imagined.
While working on Mint's body before his funeral, mortician "Zig" Zigarowski discovers something he was never meant to see. That telling detail leads him to Dover Air Force Base, where he uncovers Mint's involvement in a top-secret military unit and his connection to military artist and Sergeant First Class Nola Brown. Two years ago, Nola saved Zig's life--so he knows better than most that she's as volatile and dangerous as a bolt of lightning.
Everyone wants to talk to Nola, but she's not cooperating--and indeed doesn't want to be found. In order to track her down, Zig teams with Nola's long missing brother, who's just as combustible as she is. As they follow Nola's trail, they discover one of the U.S. government's most intensely guarded secrets--an undisclosed military facility that dates back to the Cold War and holds the key to something far more sinister: a hidden group willing to compromise the very safety and security of America itself.
Trouble always finds her...
She's the lightning rod.
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Brad Meltzer
Brad Meltzer doesn’t just write thrillers—he excavates the hidden pulse beneath the surface of history, government, and identity, crafting stories where secrets aren’t just plot devices but echoes of real-life mysteries. Whether he’s unraveling the buried truths behind the U.S. presidency or sending ordinary people into the heart of extraordinary conspiracies, his work blends the tension of high-stakes fiction with the intimacy of personal legacy.
Long before his novels became bestsellers or his characters landed on television screens, Meltzer was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, fascinated by comic books and presidential trivia. That blend of imagination and curiosity never left him. It shows in the way he writes—each book layered with codes, twists, and emotional weight, from The Inner Circle to The Book of Fate. He doesn't just thrill his readers—he invites them to look behind the curtain and ask: What if the stories we think we know are only the beginning?
Zig and Nola
In a world built on secrets, sometimes it takes an unlikely pair to uncover the truth no one wants found.
The Zig and Nola series walks the thin line between duty and obsession, between justice and vengeance. What begins with a government mortician—Jim "Zig" Zigarowski—quietly tending to the dead in the hidden corners of military bureaucracy quickly spirals into something far more dangerous. When Zig crosses paths with Nola Brown, a fiercely enigmatic Army artist with a traumatic past and a knack for vanishing into shadows, their lives become tangled in conspiracies designed to stay buried.
Zig and Nola consists of three books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
