The trilogy continues. Fuse picks up several years after Submission ends. Lyle Sullivan is now a celebrated author of many best-sellers, but is secretly sinking into alcoholism and depression.

Marlowe had written an unpublished novella in the 1990s, titled Fuse. It was about a man from Friendship, a small fictitious town in Arkansas. Marlowe lived in Arkansas for four years and based Friendship on Bill Clinton's hometown, Hope. This young man, feeling despondent and abandoned by his community, joins up with a militia online. He is inspired by their anti-government terrorist philosophy and decides he's going to make a statement by driving to New York City and blow himself up at the National Convention which is underway. A writer living in New York sees a good story for his next novel in this deadly deed. He travels to Friendship and retraces the bomber's route up to New York, documenting the people and places along the way.

Marlowe revisted the storyline after recording Eulogy in 2005. He wanted to write not