TWENTY THIRTY FOUR

The story is set in 2034, in a dystopian Britain during the World War Three. The 2020s have been ravaged by new covid outbreaks and the world has descended into conflict.

To control the population, the British Government sets up The Ministry of Information run by a young Intelligence Officer called Sophie Hallam. The Ministry is able to use the latest surveillance equipment available to track the citizens of the UK under the guise of The War Act. Civil liberty has been eroded under the pretext of homeland security. Britain is no longer a land where freedom can be taken for granted.

Charlie Wilson is a University Professor supplementing his income as a freelance journalist. Sophie Hallam starts tracking him. Is Charlie a 5th columnist and a subversive? What about his enigmatic friend and colleague at the London School of Economics, Karam Hashid?

This fast paced, cat and mouse chase, around the streets and landmarks of London is an edge of the seat thriller against the backdrop of a not too futuristic world that has emerged from the Covid 19 Pandemic, a world of insecurity, fear and bleakness.

The story takes the reader on an epic global journey from China to America, from the countries of Africa to the shores of Southern Europe, from Syria to Nigeria and closer to home at Borough Market, Westminster and the Thames Barrier.

This novel will stretch the readers mind in length and breadth but also in time, spanning a period of fourteen years. Is this futurology or just nail biting fiction?

In America, the Biden Presidency, the second American Civil War and the return of Donald Trump in 2024 presages war with China. The Chinese invasion of Taiwan and the absorption of Hong Kong leads to the outbreak of World War Three. This is no conventional war, instead fought by proxy in Africa, where Covid 28 has been weaponised, forcing mass migration with the potential to swamp the continent of Europe. Armies are created but not to fight one another, but to repel the mass of human flotsam which threatens the very future of the EU. Britain creates its own Homeland Defense to repel the hundreds of thousands of immigrants fleeing the African Continent. Against this backdrop, the advances in technology are staggering. Driverless cars, known as Pods, become the new surveillance, putting tens of millions of cameras on the roads, enabling the authorities to watch their population day and night. Drones that deliver goods twenty four seven act like spies in the sky for the ever watchful eye of The Ministry of Information monitoring a population cowed and subjugated not by force, but by propaganda and disinformation.

Sophie Hallam, the brightest star of all the Military Intelligence sits astride the Ministry, watching over London with millions of cameras at her disposal. How could anyone push back against the state unseen?