Overload

De: Arthur Hailey

Narrado por: B.J. Harrison

The #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Hotel and Airport “hits with another blockbuster,” a terrorist takedown of California’s power grid (The Observer).

In the middle of a sweltering July heat wave that has no end in sight, California’s Golden State Power and Light is on overload. An emergency brownout is already in effect. Then, GSP&L’s newest and largest generator explodes. With four people dead and a widespread loss of power, a fringe group takes responsibility. But for GSP&L vice president Nim Goldman and his family; his adversary, investigative reporter Nancy Molineaux; detective Harry London; and beautiful quadriplegic Karen Sloan, whose every breath depends on electric power, the terror is just beginning . . .

A dramatic and timely story of the people and the events leading to a crisis, Overload presents a fascinating view of the little-known world of electric power production that is vital to contemporary life.

©1978, 1979 by Arthur Hailey. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Definitely a product of the 1970s.

I started reading this book a few years ago when a relative let me borrow it. I got about halfway through and never finished it. When I saw that an audiobook was coming out, I jumped at getting it.

This book is definitely a product of the 1970's. The main character is a womanizer who apparently learns his lesson and then learns nothing at the end when he steps out on his wife (who has cancer) at the very end of the book. The book is simply all over the place. Spoiler alert. A guy loses his man parts by electrocution. There are environmental terrorists who bomb and kill randomly. There are government hearings. We learn about geothermal power plants. The main character sleeps with every woman he can including a paralyzed polio survivor. We hear about constipation from a TV doctor. We never get a resolution to the wife's cancer plot. The paralyzed polio survivor dies at the end due to a power outage.

It is hard to give this book a rating. It is like a thousand jumbled thoughts put into a book. It is entertaining and the narrator does a great job. The story is simply all over the place and incoherent.