Patricia Loofbourrow

The Alcatraz Coup Patricia Loofbourrow

How far would you go to save your city from a madman?

Fifteen hundred years after the Catastrophe, Inventor Benjamin Kerr built the domed neo-Edwardian city-state of Bridges in the center of the former U. S. Three hundred years later, Bridges is in trouble. King Taylor Kerr is elderly, the economy is struggling, and corruption is rampant.

Forty years ago, a fence was built outside of the "Pot of Gold" -- the city proper -- to keep out the growing numbers of homeless. This number has increased to over a hundred thousand, whole generations knowing nothing else but life in the tent camps.

Acevedo Spadros is a high school Bridges history teacher. His former student Xavier Alcatraz is head of the Guard. When King Taylor is assassinated by his son Polansky Kerr, who then plans to slaughter everyone outside the fence, Acevedo and Xavier plan the unthinkable: to bring down the Mad King.