The Fallen Sky

London is wrecked by an atom war. Dr. Robert Elman skulks among the devestated ruins, as far as he knows the last human being left alive. His rifle is the one defence against the Pack – the wild, hunger-maddened dogs who persue him. At last, among the ruins of Trafalgar Square he finds one building more or less undamaged, St. Martins-in-the-Fields. Then starts the strange story of a fight to wrest some manner of life from the ruins, to get some hope for the future. In the midst of this he meets the possible last woman on earth. This sounds like story line to one or more modern films. However this book was first published in 1954. Some compared his style to H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury and now this gem of a book is widely available again. The author, Peter Crowcroft, was a commando in the Second World War and maintained this was his protest against the atom bomb. He went on to Hollywood to write scripts, books of films and to act in "On a Clear Day" with Barbra Steisand.