What happens when the war is everywhere--including home?

Bruce and Milton Borchard want to rob a bank.  They have a plan, and they have a bank in mind.  All they need is luck.

Even after their first attempt ends in disaster,  they are determined to succeed.  But the aftermath of their robbery is discovered by Terrence, their legally blind neighbor.  Terrence could call the police, but what if the brothers-- or their unstable mother-- realize who has turned them in?

Terrence reports what he has heard to his girlfriend Nina, and her brother, Carraway, a just-returned Iraq war vet with experience in the military police.  Carraway plans to interrupt the Borchard’s life of crime--but is his solution just another act of violence?

Set in the contemporary San Francisco Bay Area, this novel explores the effects of war on the people who fight, and on their families.  Against the backdrop of today's financial trouble and mounting crime, Flash tells the story of Nina, who welcomes her brother's return from Iraq only to fear that he has become a violent stranger, as and Terrence, witness to the aftermath of a bank robbery only to become the next target.

Michael Cadnum says:

While I was creating Flash, I kept running across the word Flash written on walls--the word was everywhere. 

I saw the title of the novel; scratched into sidewalks.

And as I was writing the novel, fires tormented the San Francisco Bay Area, including one blaze that I could see from my home.

 Michael In Oakland, California, January, 2012.  Photo by Sherina Cadnum