THE DREAMERS

(Scribner €20.99) WALKER’S 2012 debut The Age Of Miracles, a kind of intimate disaster novel about the consequences of a slowdown in the Earth’s rotation, went down a treat with readers who didn’t get hung up on the science.

Now she’s back with this slick, cinematic tale of an American university town hit by a mysterious sleeping sickness. As the killer virus sows panic, we hopscotch through an ensemble cast, including an ill-at-ease student who runs away from quarantine and a lecturer foraging for supplies for his newborn baby.

We’re kept on our toes by Walker’s brisk style and her propensity to do away with characters at random.

She’s good, too, on examining the implications of the scenario in an era of fake news, as speculation mounts online over whether there’s some kind of White House cover-up afoot.

The novel’s excitement is so addictive, you don’t care too much that the mystical pay-off involving clairvoyancy seems a bit of a let-down.