Cat's cradle

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker''s three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker''s death-wish comes true when his last, fatal, gift to mankind brings about an end that, for all of us, is night.