Kirjahaku

America's been bloodied but not beaten. An estimated twenty million people have died, but an exact count may never be known. The entire country is buried beneath poison ash and many still aren't accounted for. The survivors are hurting, but they must find ways to keep going. Good old American ingenuity goes into high gear. The farmers find new ways to grow crops on poisoned land. Truckers find new ways to get vital cargo to where it needs to be. In every city the residents find new ways to grow what they need and to help one another pull through. Meanwhile it seems everyone in America is moving. The evacuees are moving as far as they can from the smoking hole in the ground which was once Yellowstone National Park. The federal government is spending money it doesn't have... nothing new for them... only this time it's using the money to build new cities in isolated places in an effort to help with the largest resettlement project in the history of man.

Even when faced with record-breaking high and low temperatures, storms of severity never before witnessed by man and expanding hurricane and tornado seasons, scientists cannot agree on what's making our climate and weather patterns go haywire. In recent years the problem has been deemed more political than scientific. In the halls of Congress, finger pointing is the order of the day. One camp blames the few scientists who still deny climate change as being bought and paid for. Nothing more, really, than paid lobbyists trying to protect the fossil fuel industries in the face of a decreasingly-deniable problem. The other camp says the vast majority of scientists who've concluded that climate change is a real thing are merely trying to further a liberal agenda. To finally strengthen pollution standards and reduce carbon emissions to levels which have had them salivating for years. Everybody wants cleaner air. But conservatives claim that obtaining that clean air will shackle big oil and the coal industry and raise costs for everyone. "Clean air is nice," they say. "But we don't want the nation to have to pay five dollars a gallon for gas to get it." And therein lies the crux of the problem. Each side is too busy blaming the other side to actually deal with the problem. It's far more important that their side doesn't get blamed for whatever ugliness is coming. But what if both sides are missing the point? What if both sides are spending so much effort blaming the other side that they've lost sight of the fact that people are dying unnecessarily? And that the problem could very possibly get much worse unless they stop sitting on their hands and do their jobs? Most people assume it's the damage from more powerful hurricanes, tornados and floods that's the biggest hazard of climate change. But what if the problem is none of those? What if the biggest hazard from climate change is something different? Something the scientists haven't even considered yet? Something that has the potential of eradicating humanity itself? "Pandemic" delves into one such possibility...

It's been more than a year since the blackout, and seemingly forever since Dave Spear set out in a desperate search for his family. His quest has never been easy. He's been beaten half to death and almost murdered several times. And he's watched good friends die. He's been robbed of his most prized possession: an SUV he got running again using parts from his Faraday cage. But this former Marine gave as well as he got. The Corps taught him how to kill. And he's done plenty of that. Now Dave and wife Sarah are walking more than a thousand miles on foot, from Kansas to San Antonio and back to their prepper stronghold. With just a month to go, though, Sarah is ill and near death. Daughter Lindsey has a badly broken and infected leg. They have to face facts. They won't make it to San Antonio before winter sets in. The best they can do is to make it to Blanco, where Dave's good friend Red is the town's only law. Red will let them winter in Blanco and set out again in the spring. If only they can make it there alive.

The snow has started to melt. The survivors can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But getting there won't be easy; nothing's ever been easy. In Plainview Josie is badly beaten by her brother. She and Frank have decided to move up their escape attempt. A few weeks later they find themselves outside in what many would describe as a winter wonderland. But they don't have to travel four hundred miles through three feet of snow. To Frank and Josie it's more a wintry hell. A tragic suicide at Joint Base Lackland changes everything. But the general court martial of two high ranking military officers is moving forward at breakneck speed. And at Eden South a stricken Mayor Al sends Marty on yet another hazardous mission.

In Book 1 of this series, "Final Dawn", we met Hannah and Mark. She was a brilliant scientist, working for a NASA contractor. He was a successful engineer and a bit of a cornball. Together they made the perfect pair. They were a young couple in love, and looking forward to a bright future. Everything changed the day Hannah found out the world was doomed. She discovered a meteorite headed for earth that would wipe out most of mankind. The United States government, led by a corrupt President more concerned with saving his cronies than his citizens, tried to silence her. When she was able to spread the word anyway, President Sanders did what politicians usually do. He lied. "Don't worry," he told his citizens. "We have a plan. We'll work with the Chinese. We'll send up a weapon with a powerful nuclear warhead, capable of diverting the meteorite onto another path." People around the world were conflicted. They desperately wanted to believe. No one wanted to die. But they knew they couldn't trust their governments. Some panicked. Some rioted. Some calmly accepted their fate. And some, like Mark and Hannah, continued their efforts to save themselves and the people they loved. A few days before impact, the mine they would call home for the next seven years was finally ready. Mark and Hannah gathered up family and friends and gave them shelter. It wasn't a tropical paradise, but it would keep them alive. "Final Dawn" ended when Saris 7 collided with the earth. Around the world, millions were dying. But deeply hidden in an old salt mine outside of Junction, Texas, these forty people would survive. Here, in "Hidden", is the story of their survival.

At last, the much awaited sequel to last year's blockbuster hit, "A Secret Life." Tony Hance was a good kid, two years out of high school and grappling with his future. He had a job, and while it wasn't glamorous, it paid his bills and kept him in shape. He had a loving family and great friends. The Vietnam War was finally over, and the country was more concerned with disco dancing than fighting wars. Life was good. But things sometimes change in a hurry, and one bad decision can sometimes destroy a future. Sharon was a looker who accepted Tony's advances a bit too quickly. A man with more experience might have seen that as a red flag. But Tony was still innocent and na ve to many of the ways of the world. He considered Sharon not as a threat, but as a lonely woman who wanted his company, and he was more than happy to oblige. It was over in a flash in a seedy motel room. A drunken Tony was attacked from behind by Sharon's partner and hit in the head. When it was over, Sharon and her partner both lay dead by Tony's hand. He panicked, and he ran. His brother Mark was the first to find him, at a military base just outside of Anchorage. The FBI was not far behind him. But as the authorities closed in on him, Tony was able to slip through their grasp. It was only temporary, he knew. But it bought him enough time to disappear into the Alaskan wilderness. Mark helped Tony get away, assuming his brother's identity when boarding a jet back to Seattle, and drawing the feds with him. Then the trail went cold. The FBI assumed Tony landed in Seattle and then disappeared into parts unknown. His family knew he was still in Alaska, but not exactly where. And Tony did his level best to disappear from everybody. Here, in "The Hunted," is Book 2 of the series.