J. Luke BenneckeTHRILLER AUTHOR Free novella
New · Jake Bendel #3 · Out now

The President is dead. The grid is next.

A coordinated drone strike plunges America into chaos, and the next target is the power grid you depend on. The engineer who built it has to stop it.

“A must-read freight train of a thriller.”Grant Blackwood · #1 New York Times bestselling author
Luke has been featured onKTVU FOX 2KTLA 5LA WeeklyBusiness InsiderBookTribTech Times
The Jake Bendel thrillers

Roads. Water. Power.

Three thrillers about the systems your life runs on, written by a civil engineer who spent decades designing them. Each stands alone; they’re best in order.

Praise

What readers and authors are saying

“An adrenaline-fueled joyride! BLACKOUT is a relentless techno-thriller ripped from the headlines where the nation’s vulnerabilities are exposed.”

James L’etoile · Award-winning author of Illusion of Truth · on Blackout

“Bennecke delivers a smart, twisty political thriller that keeps things moving at breakneck speed.”

Kirkus Reviews · on Blackout

“A truly unnerving and explosive terrorism thriller that deftly turns modern infrastructure into a battlefield. Every single page feels dangerously plausible.”

BestThrillers.com · on Blackout
17
Multi-award-winning author

17 book awards. 8 first-place wins.

Judges keep saying what readers say: these thrillers are hard to put down. Honors for Gridlock, Waterborne, Echo From a Bayou and Tides of Crime.

More from Luke

Beyond Jake Bendel

J. Luke BenneckeLuke on Local Living TV, Las VegasLuke with his Best Indie Book Award for Echo From a Bayou
Meet the author

An engineer who writes about what breaks

J. Luke Bennecke is an Amazon #1 bestselling thriller author who writes about what happens when technology gets smarter, and people don’t. A graduate of Cal Poly Pomona with an MBA from Cal State San Bernardino, the civil engineer and former CEO spent decades designing real-world systems in California before turning to fictional ones that fail far more spectacularly.

#1Amazon bestselling author
17book awards, 8 first-place wins
ITWInternational Thriller Writers member
Luke’s story
On the road

Where you’ll find Luke

Events & press
BLACKOUT at Barnes & Noble, October 2026
BLACKOUT at Barnes & Noble, October 2026
Book club night with Echo From a Bayou, 2024
Book club night with Echo From a Bayou, 2024
Author table at Bouchercon 2026, Calgary
Author table at Bouchercon 2026, Calgary
Tides of Crime cover
Free for new readers

Get Tides of Crime free

Join Luke’s reader list and get Tides of Crime, the Kristi Konnors origin novella, free. Then a short email every month or two: new releases, behind-the-scenes, and subscriber-only giveaways.

Free novellaKindle, phone or PDFNo spam, ever
Delivered by BookFunnel. Unsubscribe with one click, any time.
News & press

Luke in the media

All news & press