You think you’re having a bad day?Meet Otto Jackson—today, his wife, child, and the rest of the women and children in the maternity ward, participating in the miracle of birth, died simultaneously. The doctors and nurses can’t explain it, and Otto is too shell-shocked to believe it happened. Then, as if his day couldn’t get any weirder, all of the governments of the known world banded together to form a global co-op—a United World—and called for an immediate evacuation of all major cities on Earth. Otto and the rest of the people of Utica, New York move out of the city to hide from the ambiguously imminent danger, and set up camp in a rural section of the state.It is the lousiest Tuesday Otto can remember.When the initial surprise of his situation wears off, and his mundane days become too unbearable, Otto treks back to Utica to search for a new book to read (as one does when one is bored during the apocalypse). But before he can retrieve a new novel and return to the UW camp, he finds himself wrapped up in a mystery involving three eccentric children; strange weather patterns; and a man with a bow tie and murderous intentions.Such is life.