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 the 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 along the end that, for all of us, is nigh