Book excerpt: 'An ambitious, cinematic thriller' Observer 'A talented storyteller' The Times 'A cinematic epic' Daily Mail What if the only hope for survival becomes the greatest threat? From the brilliant, bestselling author of Child 44 comes a suspenseful and fast-paced novel about a colony of global apocalypse survivors seeking to reinvent civilisation under the most extreme conditions imaginable. The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist… Antarctica. Cold People follows the journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold? Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, Cold People is a masterful and unforgettable epic. Praise for Tom Rob Smith ‘A remarkable achievement’ Jeffery Deaver ‘Amazing’ Lee Child ‘Chilling, hypnotic and thoroughly compelling’ Mark Billingham ‘Truly original and chilling’ Jojo Moyes ‘Tom Rob Smith’s mastery of suspense will make any reader’s heart pound’ Financial Times ‘A thrilling, intense piece of fiction’ Observer ‘Ingeniously plotted... a high voltage story’ New York Times ‘Perfectly plotted, utterly terrifying’ Daily Mail ‘A mind-blowing, addictive plot that will have you on the edge of your seat’ Stylist ‘A powerful page-turner’ GQ ‘Taut and atmospheric’ Irish Independent ‘Masterly... read this and shiver’ Telegraph