THE LAURIE STERNE TRILOGY
IT'S 2050. Humanity failed to heed the warnings about climate change. Everyone is paying the price, but for the millions who have lost their homes to drought, heat and desertification, the cost is cruelly high. Laurie Sterne is a refugee, incarcerated in the prison city of London. He's lost everything, he's alone in the world, and people want to kill him. It's time to fight back. Laurie's story plays out over the course of three novels. The Black Ditch is the unputdownable start of the journey. More than just a warning of what could come to be, it is a haunting take of courage, resilience and love.
THE BLACK DITCH
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THE system has been trying to get Laurie since he was seven. That's when the authorities found out he was brought into the country illegally as a baby. They were going to deport him but at the last minute he was reprieved and sent to London. Rising sea levels and the encroaching Thames have driven the government to Birmingham and the abandoned capital has become a prison camp where gangs rule and murder goes unpunished.
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Laurie has survived to be thirty-three by keeping his head down but his strategy falls apart one February evening in 2050. His adoptive father is killed, his boss is killed and he escapes by the skin of his teeth. Laurie has an unusual talent: he can see into the future, and he can look into minds. But this strange skill isn't helping: whoever wants him dead remains one step ahead of him and won't give up.
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Laurie finds an ally, his dead boss's secret daughter. On the one hand she gives him a reason to carry on but on the other she seems to be driving him deeper into peril. Laurie must find out whose side she is really on, and track down the killer, before he becomes another London statistic at deceased reception.
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The Black Ditch is the first of the Laurie Sterne novels, but a complete story in itself. The trilogy will continue with The Death Academy.
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WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THE BLACK DITCH
This is a grim foretelling of the future and the direction of modern politics makes it seem all too possible. It’s intensely dark and very gripping
Laurie is a really original mix of nerd/sociopath/action hero.
I stayed up until long past midnight to finish the last few chapters - haven't done that in a while!