Novel set in USA, LONDON, PARIS
A frightening eco thriller set in NEW YORK
30th April 2025
Manhattan Down by Michael Cordy, a frightening eco thriller set in New York.
At 5.25 PM on the evening of 10 September Manhattan involuntarily goes to sleep. Millions of people stop in their tracks and collapse to the floor or pavement. Hundreds of the world’s leaders are gathered in the United Nations Building for a conference on Resilience and Hope. They suffer the same fate. Cars spin out of control on the roads, and there are numerous accidents and many deaths. It is chaos and it is carnage.
Nearly everyone in Manhattan is impacted by whatever it is that is causing the city to close down, but a very few are not. Nick Lockwood is a detective who has been in hospital in a coma since he was attacked in the street a couple of weeks previously. He wakes up at the moment everyone else falls asleep. And Samantha Rossi is unaffected. She has just been diagnosed with FFI (Fatal Familial Insomnia) meaning she cannot sleep and is scheduled to die in the not too distant future. She suspects her daughter, Zoe, may well have the same condition – and Zoe is missing somewhere in Manhattan. Nick and Samantha (and Zoe) are critical players as the plot develops.
Only Manhattan is affected by whatever is going on. The New York State and the Federal Governments are panicking. They work out it much be some king of electrical impulse that is causing the situation, but they cannot determine much more than that. They have no idea how it was caused and by whom. They surmise a terrorist group is behind the action and await what they believe will be a ransom demand. They are not disappointed. A group called Waking Eye claims responsibility and issues a list of demands. All are connected to action to halt and reverse climate change. The authorities have little choice but to go along with the demands. Otherwise the sleepers will not be woken and will die.
Meanwhile Nick and Samantha have encountered each other and are roaming the streets of a pretty deserted night time Manhattan trying to work out what is going on and how to stop it. They encounter, and (by luck and by trickery) are accepted by seven members of Waking Eye – people named after the seven deadly sins (Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Sloth, Greed, and Wrath). Each of them has a particular skill or expertise which is why they were selected for the team.
The story builds to a frightening crescendo.
Manhattan Down is a somewhat bizarre read. Easy to dismiss as perhaps a fanciful (if exciting) excursion into the real of impossibilities. But it is a lot more than that. Since finishing it (a few days ago) it has kept resurfacing in my consciousness. It is a book that makes you think about what could happen…
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