Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897-1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories.
Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. During his life, he wrote more than 70 books which sold over 50 million copies.

Before the vogue of apocalyptic fiction really took off, in 1932 Dennis Wheatley researched and imagined a party of would-be survivors in the glow of a pending comet on course to collide with planet earth.
Astronomers could see it coming, civilians could slowly feel the effect of its rays tuning into their baser violent or passionate instincts, but what action would the government take amongst the rumours in such uncertainty? Evacuate the cities under martial law and risk national panic and chaos, or simply deny knowledge to maintain order in the hope that scientific predictions would prove false?
For millionaire Sam Curry, and his young wife and Hollywood starlet, Lavina, on learning of the prediction that they may have only sixty days to enjoy their new marriage, money is no object in taking measures to ensure their survival. Over dinner with a select group of family and friends, they decide a gyroscopic ark may see them through any eventualities, and go about ordering in materials without raising suspicion, and trying to live a normal life until the potential moment of impact grew near. But could they all be trusted to keep themselves and the ark safe from a nation already starting to panic, loot and riot?
And if they are to survive, what state will the planet be left in? Will the millions of corpses decay into airborne disease that would wipe out anyone left? Where and how will they settle to create a new civilisation? When nothing is certain and nothing remains, will any of the survivors be able to survive each other?