The Fall of Eden

At the start of Michaels's debut, a predictable postapocalyptic thriller, Charles Spencer, his wife and their two children as well as his brother, Dan, have come to the Caribbean island of St. Barthélemy to bring his dying 81-year-old father back to the U.S. When nuclear missiles devastate the United States and Europe, the Spencer family finds they have limited contact with the outside world. Who was behind the attacks remains obscure as the militaristic Dan wastes little time seizing a cache of guns and recruiting allies both to defend the hotel where the Spencers are staying and to make sorties in search of provisions. The inevitable bloodshed between competing groups of survivors and discussions of what sacrifices are necessary to insure viability follow. Readers would do better to go back to such classics of this genre as Nevil Shute's On the Beach and John Christopher's No Blade of Grass . (Nov.)