Cable News in the Time of COVID-19 is a thriller that begins with what appears to be the opioid-induced coma of Samantha Corelli, a free-lance political reporter in Washington, DC. Samantha’s history of drug abuse and eventual criminal activity led to her estrangement from her mother, Bobbi Corelli, and her sister, Sydney Paretti, a detective in the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. When Sydney is notified that Samantha is in the neurological ICU at the George Washington University Teaching Hospital in DC, she joins the lead investigators, Zack Greene and Richard Harris of the DC Metro Police Department, in their investigation.

Their inquiry takes place in the backdrop of the high stakes and polarized national capital just prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the last year of Donald J. Trump’s presidency. The turning point in the investigation occurs while Samantha remains in a coma and Sydney returns to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to work on a homicide case. While going through her mail that had accumulated while she was in DC, Sydney finds a flash drive that Samantha had mailed to her just prior to her hospitalization. It turns out that Samantha was no longer involved in the drug scene and was now a respected, hardworking journalist. Indeed, her coma was part of an effort by someone in power to end her life. Led through a web of international and political intrigue, Sydney and her team uncover a conspiracy involving the White House, a powerful cable news company, and an unusual viral disease that started in Wuhan, China.