The Punishments

An Orwellian thriller – The heart-pounding story of a family after electing a demagogue and fundamentalists who adopt Biblical Law for moral punishments.

The economy sucks. Robots keep eliminating middle class jobs. Terrorism is a constant threat. The CIA and FBI can’t stop terrorists. The bureaucratic IRS needs to be shaken up.

Angry, fearful voters elect a narcissistic demagogue President and fundamentalist congress. The CIA, FBI and IRS are organized into a super-department, the Department of Virtue, with a mandate to bring the nation back to its Christian roots. Virtue’s director institutes Biblical Law punishments as an example to those who break the commandments. Only two US Senators -- and one mysterious woman -- can prevent a disaster.

ONE VOTE

One vote against the Citizens Justice & Security Act thrusts Senator William Thatcher and his family onto the dreaded ‘enemies list’ at the new Department of Virtue. Thatcher is a middle-aged husband, father, and terrorist war veteran. He’s also an evangelical praying in vain for forgiveness for a love affair and secret war crime.

He teams up with his former lover, a sultry Moroccan arms dealer who needs to ransom her own daughter, held in Marrakesh, from a depraved monster – her father.

Thatcher’s wife, Carol, a blacklisted Planned Parenthood attorney, launches a fight against Virtue’s proposed ‘temporary’ suspension of the 19th Amendment - Women’s Right to Vote.

Their eleven-year-old son, Billy, is caught in the crosshairs of the Director’s attempt to control Thatcher.

Virtue’s Director plans a worldwide spectacle to introduce Biblical Law (death by stoning for adultery, homosexuality, murder, idolatry, etc.). He also plans to explode a suitcase nuclear bomb in Manhattan to initiate the Rapture.

Thatcher’s final act of self- sacrifice and love may or may not save his family and America from destruction.

WELCOME TO TOMORROW