The Death of Grass

When a virus that kills all grasses, including the wheat, rice, and barley that feed the world, spreads out of Asia and reaches England, the government's promises of containment collapse into rumors of secret plans to bomb its own cities to control the population. John Custance, a London engineer, gathers his family and a handful of companions and leads them on a desperate flight north to his brother's farm, a valley sealed off enough to be defended and farmed. The journey across a disintegrating country forces the group to rob, kill, and abandon their old morality piece by piece, until the men who reach the valley are nothing like the men who set out. Christopher writes a fast, unflinching account of how thin the veneer of civilization turns out to be.