In Gloucestershire this week, as the flood waters have risen, we have been confronted on the 24-hour news channels by the very worst of human behaviour: profiteers selling 2 litre bottles of water at exorbitant prices, capitalising on the misery of some of the estimated 300,000 people without tap water.
The wider picture, that of flood waters dominating huge swathes of western and southern England, tells another story: that of the fragility of modern life. Millions of people are packed into tight urban areas, utterly reliant on a complex, sophisticated socio-economic system that delivers to them the basic nutrients of our comfortable 21st Century existence: water, food, power and security.
What happens when you take one element of that away: reports of panic-buying, looting, profiteering.
This is the simple but terrifying theme explored in Alex Scarrow's new novel, Last Light, which is published in the UK today.
But in Last Light, it is not just a handful of counties that are affected, but the entire world, and it is not just one of the staples of life that dry up but all of them.
Political upheaval in Saudi Arabia results in the oil fields being seized and subsequently shut down. The trouble quickly spreads throughout the Middle East and within a matter of hours the oil production of the entire region, and therefore a high proportion of the oil supply to the western world, is effectively ended. Copycat activity in other major oil-producing nations lead to very similar results and suddenly life as we know it is about to change.
In London, the government begins to enact its emergency plan, but it very quickly becomes apparent that the contingencies for this eventuality are utterly inadequate. Oil may last a week or two at best. Without it the delicate ecosystem that supports life will collapse: no power, no food, no clean water. A jumpy Prime Minister inadvertantly reveals the depth of the crisis to journalists and within minutes the panic spreads.
Last Light follows four central characters through the mayhem, death and destruction. Andy Sutherland, a Kiwi geologist, is in Iraq helping to put that country's infrastructure back together following the 2003 war and the trouble that followed. His estranged wife Jenny is in Manchester attending a job interview while their daughter is at university in Norwich and their son at boarding school in London.
Sutherland quickly recognises what is going on - an artificial acceleration of the phenomenon known as Peak Oil - and warns his family of the impending social apocalypse, urging them to build up their supplies of food and water and congregate somewhere safe. He faces the most dangerous journey of all: a race against time across the war-torn middle east to the last British transport plane to leave the region. But as he fights his way through it becomes increasingly clear that not only does he know what is happening, but also why, and by whom it has been triggered.
Back in the UK his family face a society descending into Hobbesian chaos: it is every man and woman for himself in an environment where every last bottle of water is worth killing, dying for.
Last Light is a terrific thriller: it is fast and action-packed with an intriguing mystery at its heart, and a nugget of conspiracy for Mulder types. It came as no surprise to me when Alex Scarrow answered the Material Witness 10 Questions that he named Stephen King as one of his favourite authors. There's a lot of The Stand about this book: a desperate quest for survival as familiar things disappear.
But as good a thriller as it is, that's not what will keep you awake at night or send you down to Tesco at 7am to buy 200 tins of corned beef and 400 litres of bottled water. What makes Last Light so compelling, and so terrifying, is that the central premise - that our society is fragile and subject to breakdown - is utterly convincing. And that will stay with you long after you've forgotten about Andy Sutherland.
Last Light should be the thriller of the summer. It should be the novel that airport booksellers can't get enough of. And you should read it.