Product Description

After several years of research into an issue that affects us all, Alex Scarrow has written a chilling thriller that depicts in a harrowingly convincing way just how fragile our society really is, and how we are only a hair's breadth away from its collapse. It begins on a very normal Monday morning. But in the space of only a few days, the world's oil supplies have been severed and at a horrifying pace things begin to unravel everywhere. And this is no natural disaster: someone is behind this. Oil engineer Andy Sutherland is stranded in Iraq with a company of British soldiers, desperate to find a way home to his family, trapped as transport links and the very infrastructure of daily life begins to collapse around him. Back in Britain, his wife Jenny is stuck in Manchester, fighting desperately against the rising chaos to get back to London, where their children are marooned as events begin to spiral out of control; riots, raging fires, looting, rape and murder. In the space of a week, London is transformed into a lawless and anarchic vision of Hell. And against all this, a mysterious man is tracking Andy's family. He'll silence anyone who might be able to reveal the identities of those behind this global disaster. It seems that the same people who now have a stranglehold on the future of civilization have flexed their muscles before, at other significant tipping points in history, and they are prepared to do anything to keep their secret - and their power - safe. A knuckle-whitening look at what our future could hold, LAST LIGHT is terrifying, compelling, and above all, convincing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172636 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Alex Gordon, Peterborough Evening Telegraph
"few books have made my heart race and blood pressure soar like this one... it had me on the edge of my seat."

Review
"few books have made my heart race and blood pressure soar like this one... it had me on the edge of my seat." (Alex Gordon Peterborough Evening Telegraph )

"a terrific thriller... the thriller of the summer. It should be thebnbovel that airport booksellers can't get enough of." (Ben Hunt MaterialWitness.com )

'Alex Scarrow's depiction of Britain as only a few hours away from disintegration is chillingly plausible. This is the perfect book to give to somebody who opposes your plans to build a wind farm.' (Daily Telegraph )

"Scarrow keeps his foot on the acceleratorin this apocalyptic thriller, which is reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth and john Wyndham" (Mike Ripley Birmingham Post )

"...Last Light is sensational." (London Lite )

Daily Telegraph
'Alex Scarrow's depiction of Britain as only a few hours away from
disintegration is chillingly plausible. This is the perfect book to give to somebody who opposes your plans to build a wind farm.'

Customer Reviews

Gripping - needs to be read.
Alex Scarrow's new novel is set in a future that can literally be tomorrow, a future that by next week, could be a nightmare of fear, death and uncertainty.

As this is a novel rather than a non-fiction factual projection of a possible future, there are plot devices (global conspiracy, following the fortunes of key central characters etc) which in some ways impede the central message of how vulnerable we are. So in some ways some of the things I wanted to read about were not included. How people don't turn up for work at the power station when there is anarchy in the streets, how cash machines, and cash itself lose value swiftly. How petrol pumps need electricity to run, how without gas in the pipes electricity can't be restarted, and how without electricity, gas terminals can't run. A few tales of random people, how simply getting trapped in traffic chaos near a big out of town supermarket can prove to be a life-threatening situation. How having food stashed away can be a pointless decision in a world where order is replaced by random chaos. How soldiers might be more worried about getting to their loved ones than manning roadblocks when chaos bites deep and hard.

Perhaps for me the use of the plot device of a global conspiracy took away some of the possible from this, such is our vulnerability, that it would take far less than a global conspiracy to bring on such circumstances.

I thought the descriptions of feral youths uninhibited by moral or consequence was very telling, and adds a truly fearful and threatening nature to the situations the protagonists in the UK find themselves in.

So the book for me was somehow incomplete, didn't quite spell out the run-down in clear terms for the average reader. But kudos to Alex to getting this out there, a gripping tale told against the backdrop of the awesomely possible.

Superb story, great characters...will scare the hell out of you
Alex Scarrow has written a frightening story that may seem to have an obvious premise (in a nutshell, we're far too reliant on oil); however it's all the more frightening for how little serious consideration we give this issue.
Various events - it'll spoil the story to go into too much detail - result in the world's oil supply being more or less destroyed. Throughout the world and especially the UK, chaos and panic begin. Those with supplies of food and water are relatively prepared. Unfortunately, they're also targets for those without and any ideas of decency and civilisation go out the window in the struggle for survival. There is no 'Spirit of the Blitz' mentality; it's everyone for himself.
In the middle of this, Andy Sutherland attempts to get back to England from Iraq while his estranged wife works her way from Manchester to London in order to get to their two children. The problem is, someone else is after one of their children for reasons connected to the cause of the disaster. At the same time, the country is tearing itself apart.

Read the first couple of pages and get ready for a ride.

Best book of 2007 so far.
I read Alex's first novel and knew that I should pick up this lastest one on the day of release. It has surpassed expectations - it's a cliché but if you only read one book this summer make it this one. This is high praise, but I believe this book is one edit away from brilliant and two edits away from a classic...and in this genre that is a nigh on impossible feat. Let's hope he's scribbling away as we speak because I for one want more.