When Jake Green returns to his Kansas small-town home Jericho, where his dad Johnston is mayor, everyone is preoccupied with petty private business and family matters, but that changes drastically after a completely unexpected explosion. It soon becomes clear there has been a nuclear attack, but neither by whom nor on which scale. Suddenly life in Jericho, and as the inhabitants gradually discover all over the disintegrating USA, becomes a more primordial struggle for survival, where unexperienced dangers, primitive as well as technological, have to be weighed against pressing primal needs, such as food, fuel and self-defense against plunderers, invaders and even each-other. Jake, whose private story like that of other main characters slowly becomes disclosed to us, proves extremely resourceful and a smart hero, while his father's mayoral authority and even that of the only available medical professionals is soon challenged and undermined...
