Frank Owen

A Guardian Book of the Month'Echoes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Stephen King's The Stand...' Guardian on SouthIf a virus doesn't kill you, the South will...The USA has been ravaged by Civil War. It's been thirty years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South. While the South has been devastated by disease - the North has emerged victorious, but terrified of reprisals. Both territories remain at the mercy of the vicious Northern dictator, Renard.Two survivors, Dyce and Vida, journeyed deep into the Southern terrains in search of a cure for Renard's chemical warfare. Now they find themselves scouring the Northern territories on a new and far deadlier pursuit; to eliminate Renard himself. Could Dyce and Vida unite a fractured America - and at what cost?This is the story of Dyce and Vida.This is the story of the Resistance and its last, desperate, stand.This is the story of North.

South takes place in a USA ravaged by Civil War. It's been thirty years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South - and still they keep coming. Every wind brings a new and terrifying way to die. The few survivors live in constant fear, hiding from the wind - and from each other. In this harsh Southern expanse, brothers Garrett and Dyce Jackson are on the run from brutal law-enforcers. They meet Vida, a lone traveller on a secret quest. Together, they will journey into the dark heart of a country riven by warfare and disease. This is the story of Dyce and Vida. This is the story of end-time. This is the story of The Cure and how it came too late. This is the story of South.

Outrageous parties. Brazen drug use. Fantastical costumes. Celebrities. Wannabes. Gender-bending club kids. Pulse-pounding beats. Sinful orgies. Botched police raids. Depraved criminals. Murder. Welcome to the decadent nineties club scene. In 1995, journalist Frank Owen began researching a story on Special K, a designer drug that fueled the after-midnight club scene. He went to buy and sample the drug at the internationally notorious Limelight, a crumbling church converted into a Manhattan disco, where mesmerizing music, ecstatic dancers, and uninhibited sideshows attracted long lines of hopeful onlookers. Owen discovered a world where reckless hedonism was elevated to an art form, and where the ever-accelerating party finally spun out of control in the hands of notorious club owner Peter Gatien and his minions. In Clubland, Owen reveals how a lethal drug ring operated in a lawless, black-lit realm of fantasy, and how, when the lights came up, their excesses left countless victims in their wake. Praised for his risk-taking and exhilarating writing style, Frank Owen has spawned a hybrid of literary nonfiction and true crime, capturing the zeitgeist of a world that emerged in the spirit of "peace, love, unity and respect," and ended in tragedy.