Manhattan Down is a pulse-pounding contemporary thriller which dares to imagine the unimaginable, a leaderless world being held to ransom by forces unknown for reasons unknown. The questions it asks are terrifying- and so are some of the answers.

Manhattan the city that never sleeps just said goodnight. On September 10^th,  one day before the anniversary eve of the 9/11 terror attack, New York swelters under a a heat dome of record temperatures. Even the global leaders assembled at the UN HQ are forced to admit that the climate crisis has reached boiling point and the world’s time is running out. The Waking Eye, a ruthless, highly organised eco-terrorist group has launched an unprecedented assault on the city sending almost everyone to sleep apart from Samantha Rossi, a single mother who has just been handed a medical death sentence, and Nick Lockwood, a wounded NYPD detective who wakes from a coma just as the Citu That Never Sleeps falls into one.

Cordy specialises in fast-paced, high-concept thrillers where the fate of multitudes, if not all humanity, is at stake. The world’s leaders are the first to be threatened with death unless they meet the Waking Eye’s demands. The somniferous plot device strains belief, but Rossi and Lockwood forced to work together, make a convincing team as they face a cohort of murderous, supremely self-righteous eco-warriors.

The same day, at precisely 5:25pm, everyone on Manhattan Island – every man, woman and child, including all the world leaders at the UN fall unconscious.

Rossi’s first concern is her daughter while Lockwood’s is his city. As night draws in, they must work together to unravel the mystery of what has happened and why. Each must decide how fat they will go and what lines they will cross to save what matters most to them.

Manhattan Down by Michael Cordy, Bantam £16.99, 448 pages