This is the fourth chapter in an ongoing story of a group of people impacted by a ‘meltdown’ caused by terrorist activity disabling a number of key infrastructure targets in America. In previous books we witnessed the terrorist events themselves and the immediate aftermath, which amounted to the country quickly degenerating into a collective mob as food, fuel, electricity and other key supplies dried up practically overnight. The narrative is focused on a small number of people who had been stranded miles from home at a business meeting. The meeting was, of course, abandoned and their attempts to get home showed the rapid deterioration of law and order prevalent across the country. Subsequently, we’ve followed the plight of those who did manage to get back to their families as they sought to protect their loved ones and set themselves up to survive an indeterminate period of hardship and civil unrest.
It helped that two of the men we’ve been tracking are survivalists, men who had previously put much thought and effort into taking steps to address exactly this type of scenario. But even these efforts have, to a degree, been offset or negated by the damaging actions of others. This latest book picks up directly where the last book finished.
To an extent the big story was told in the first book and everything that’s followed has had an element of sameness about it. There were times here that I thought it possible to randomly select any of books 2, 3 or 4 and not notice any real disturbance to the story’s flow. That’s a bit unkind, I know, and it’s probably not strictly true either. But it’s not that far off the mark either. The saviour, however, is that I’ve become invested in the survival of the characters I’ve come to know. I want them to ‘win’, to survive and prosper against the odds.
These books do have the feel of a long running television series with rather too many episodes, but I know I’ll be tuning in for the 5th book (already promised) when it’s released. I guess that says something about both me and the rather addictive quality of these books.