William Cooper and Michael McKinley, "A Quiet Life" (Arcade, 2024)
Apr 16, 2025•28 min
Episode description
Michael Housen is living a typical, white-collar American life at a security company when he falls for a phishing campaign with dire implications. One click, and suddenly the US is under marshal law and bombing Tehran.
Michael unknowingly triggered a cyberattack by Iranian hackers, which a belligerent President Davis uses as pretext for war against Iran. Michael blinks and he and his wife, Pam, are thrown into private prisons owned by the president, a multibillionaire tycoon. This ordinary couple suddenly must answer a harrowing question: What do you do when the enemy of the state is you? And they find themselves cooperating with extraordinary partners, from right-wing militias to Iranian documentarians, as they work to clear their names and stop the global conflict that Michael set off with an unwitting click.
Written by a renowned cybersecurity attorney and a bestselling author, A Quiet Life is a cyberthriller for the times that we all live in, and how we can lose everything on the strength of a lie. And how once we start fighting back, we cannot stop.
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