Solstice - David Hewson

The ultimate novel of the Millennium from the most exciting new thriller writer on our list. At an observatory on the island of Mallorca, a disparate group of scientists and military types is gathered. None of them seems very happy to be joined by Michael Lieberman, known throughout the scientific community as a wild card, but Lieberman is also the acknowledged world authority on sun spots and this project is clearly something to do with the extraordinary pattern of solar events that is causing electro-magnetic mayhem across an ever-more panicky globe. The pattern should peak at the summer solstice...in four days time. As the markets crash, as aircraft fall from the sky, something is happening here that not even Lieberman's brilliance can predict -- not least because he is not being told the full story about an experiment that the government has lost control of, or the activities of a millennial cult run by his beautiful and brilliant former lover.