Strike a Match
1. Serious Crimes 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy 3. Endangered Nation
Even after the apocalypse, crimes must be solved.
Strike A Match
They called them Artificial Intelligences. Sentient viruses were closer to the truth. They spread throughout the world until every networked circuit was infected. Then they went to war. Millions died in the nuclear holocaust that brought an abrupt end to the AI’s brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation, starvation, and disease. But millions survived, and they rebuilt.
1. Serious Crimes
Twenty years later, a ceremony is being held to mark the first transatlantic broadcast since The Blackout. The Prime Minister of Britain and two of the Presidents of the United States will speak to an audience of nearly ten million people. Not all are celebrating. Crime is on the rise, and power is once again a prize worth murdering for.
Ruth Deering, a new graduate from the police academy, doesn’t care about ancient history or current affairs. She only joined the force to escape the smog-infested city. Those hopes are dashed when she is assigned to the Serious Crimes Unit, commanded by the disgraced Sergeant Mitchell. Her first case seems like a simple murder, but the investigation uncovers a counterfeiting ring and a conspiracy that threatens to destroy their fragile democracy.
2. Counterfeit Conspiracy
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt. Twenty years later, civilisation is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise.
During the investigation of a routine homicide, Police Officer Ruth Deering prevents a group, claiming to be Luddites, from destroying the telegraph. This act of sabotage is only the beginning. As arrests are made and criminals are caught, evidence emerges that the saboteurs are connected to the AIs, the counterfeiting, and to the assassination. The shadowy figure behind the conspiracy must be unmasked before their fragile democracy is destroyed.
3. Endangered Nation
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Three days later, hundreds of nuclear missiles were launched. The electromagnetic pulse destroyed the machines, but the radiation and ensuing famine nearly destroyed humanity.
By 2039, civilisation had regressed to the age of steam, but newer technologies were on the horizon. The future looked bright until the warlords swept through Europe. Villages and towns were laid waste, the few thousand people who’d hacked out a life in the continental wasteland were butchered. It was only when the barbarians reached the British garrison in Calais that they were stopped. And so, another war began.
In Dover, life goes on. Food needs to be grown. Children need to be taught. For Ruth Deering, the city’s newest police officer, crimes need to be solved. When an artist is murdered, an investigation begins that will take her far beyond the city’s walls and, ultimately, determine the fate of their fragile democracy.
Set in Britain and France, twenty years after the world we know was destroyed.
4. Over By Christmas
In 2019, the lights went out across the world. In a post-apocalyptic December 2039, a new war has begun in Europe. Belgium has fallen. Calais is under siege. The land-link to the Mediterranean has been severed by the terrorist-army which has obliterated two decades of recovery. With only a conscript army to hold the front line, victory is anything but certain.
On the home front, Christmas approaches, but no one is of good cheer. As the Serious Crimes Unit investigates corruption in the military supply chain, a poisoner is on the loose in Dover. Two deaths might be accidental, but three is certainly murder. Strike a Match 4: Over By Christmas, the latest in the post apocalyptic detective series, is out now as an audiobook from Audible, iTunes, and Amazon.
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