Not the End of the World

　　"It's the start of something big, but it's not the end of the world. Or is it?" "Not the End of the World is a fast-paced comic thriller set in a Los Angeles at the near side of the millenium - and on the far side of pandemonium. It's also the American debut of Christopher Brookmyre, whose novels are a sensation in his native Britain." "When the oceanic research vessel Gazes Also is discovered drifting off the coast of California with all of its crew vanished, it sets off a chain of events that pulls Sergeant Larry Freeman of the LAPD out of his ho-hum assignment overseeing security for the American Feature Film Market and headlong into confronting a cadre of terrorists who threaten to tear the city apart. Along the way he has to contend with porn stars, Bible-thumping radicals, ancient textual scholars, and a three-ring media circus, all in a frenzied - and ultimately hysterical - race against time."