The Forcing

- Blurb -

Lured by rumours of tropical sanctuary, a disparate group of men and women escape their inhospitable exile to seek freedom, in a near future where civilisation has collapsed . . . A cataclysmic, clarion-call climate-change thriller from one of the world' s leading environmental scientists. . . ' Hardisty is a fine writer' Lee Child _________________ Civilisation is collapsing. Frustrated and angry after years of denial and inaction, a ' government of youth' has taken power in North America, and deemed all those older than a prescribed age responsible for the current state of the world, and decreed they should be ' relocated' , their property and assets confiscated. David Ashworth, known by his friends and students as Teacher, and his wife May, find themselves among the thousands being moved to ' new accommodation' in the abandoned southern deserts - thrown together with a wealthy industrialist and his wife, a high court lawyer, two recent immigrants to America, and a hospital worker. Together, they must come to terms with their new lives in a land rendered unrecognisable. As the terrible truth of their situation is revealed, lured by rumours of a tropical sanctuary where they can live in peace, they plan a perilous escape. But the world outside is more dangerous than they could ever have imagined. And for those who survive, nothing will ever be the same again. . . _________________ Praise for Paul E Hardisty ' Just occasionally, a book comes along to restore your faith in a genre and Paul Hardisty' s The Abrupt Physics of Dyingdoes this in spades' The Times ' A stormer of a thriller - vividly written, utterly topical, totally gripping' Peter James ' Remarkably well-written and sophisticated' Literary Review ' Laces the thrills and spills with enough moral indignation to give the book heft . . . excellent' Jake Kerridge, Telegraph ' Searing . . . at times achieves the level of genuine poetry' Publishers Weekly STARRED review ' A trenchant and engaging thriller that unravels this mysterious land in cool, precise sentences' Stav Sherez, Catholic Herald ' The plot burns through petrol, with multiple twists and turns' Vicky Newham