The Drift

A virus has been spreading for years, and the world it left behind is already damaged when a snowstorm seals off a mountain. Three groups of survivors are stranded in separate places, and none of them can leave.

Hannah, a medical student, comes round in an overturned coach among other survivors and several bodies. There is no food and no water. Meg wakes in a cable car stuck high above the slopes, where one of the other passengers has been stabbed.

Carter is at the Retreat, a remote research facility. He goes out into the snow to look for supplies and finds a man outside, barely alive.

Every group has a killer among its members, so the danger is inside the shelter as well as out on the mountain. Infected people called the Whistlers roam the snow beyond. The three storylines draw steadily closer together, and the survivors have to decide who among them can be trusted.

The book combines a closed-circle mystery with post-apocalyptic horror. Each setting is cramped and cold, and the question of who is lying carries as much menace as the infected outside.