Books like Tower by Simon Toyne

A cyber‑attack disables the Hubble telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Nobel Prize‑winning scientist leading the mission disappears. The only clues are a cryptic countdown clock and a chilling message: *Mankind Must Look No Further*. The investigation falls to new FBI agent Joe Shepherd, an academic with degrees in astrophysics and computer science who also carries his own secrets. Shepherd discovers a note—"end of days"—and evidence linking the attack to a series of events from eight months earlier: the explosion at the Citadel monastery in Turkey, a deadly viral outbreak, and the disappearance of American journalist Liv Adamsen and ex‑special forces operative Gabriel Mann. Liv, held in the Syrian Desert, is trapped by a prophecy that drives her to warn of looming calamities, while Gabriel, infected with the virus that emerged from the Citadel, seeks to return before it spreads. Shepherd’s pursuit leads him to the farthest reaches of the earth and to his own past as the countdown looms. As animals migrate seasonally out of turn, extreme weather plagues the planet, and people abandon cities to seek their origins, the world confronts the mystery of "end of days." The conclusion to the Ruin trilogy weaves past and present, offering humanity a choice between revelation and devastation.

First publish date: 2013