Summary
The son of a wealthy real estate investor develops a strong social conscience. He becomes concerned about the future of America, believing the nation is blindly heading into social and economic collapse. His life is focused on preparing for a great event that would shock the nation.
He secretly recruits and manipulates a group of unwitting co-conspirators. Years of preparation and boundless expenditures make an unthinkable one-man terrorist attack possible. It begins with the kidnapping of the first lady and drags the intelligence community and the country into many days of bewilderment, as well as a national epiphany.
He forces the White House and the national media into airing video recordings of his socio-political discussions with the unsuspecting first lady, while he holds her in a secret underground hideout. The topical discussions, which become instant prime-time sensations, focus the captured total national audience on the growing social and economic problems that are progressively destroying America. He pushes for unprecedented government policies, which require a great deal of sacrifice at all social levels, but which seduce an American public hungry for genuine solutions.
The book offers a thrilling story of suspense with surprises behind every page. It gives us a foretaste of how low-tech home-grown terrorism could one day stump our society. Most importantly, the author provokes all of us into considering that we do not need to tolerate deadly failures in education, criminal justice, illegal drugs, illegal immigration, national debt management; nor the steady development of generations of disengaged youth. There are solutions offered in the book, if we are willing to accept a somewhat higher level of taxation, if we are willing to require our youth to provide a new form of national service and if we are willing to make a series of proposed policy changes in government.
About the Author
Carlos L. Arce was born in New York City and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He returned to New York City at eighteen to pursue a degree in Sociology at Saint Bonaventure University. His academic studies were interrupted by the Viet Nam War, where he served as a non-commissioned officer with Army Special Forces. He obtained his degree, upon returning from the war and pursued graduate training in Criminal Justice.
He worked as a teacher and counselor inside the prisons of Riker's Island, served as criminal justice consultant to the Mayor's Office and managed major urban development programs in the South Bronx. In the private sector, he has directed a large a agro-industrial project and presided over a state-wide educational computer service company.
He is a constant student of social issues and causes and has always pursued his passion for writing. Mirror to a Nation is his first novel.
