Envisioned long before Covid and published in 2017, No Dominion by Louise Welsh is the third book in her trilogy about a grim near-future where a flue like epidemic has killed off three-quarters of the world’s population. The survivors are left facing chaos and an uncertain future. After following two people north from London, we find in this third volume that is set about seven years later, that they have settled on the Orkney Islands and live a simple, rural life.

Three strangers arrive on the island and lure a group of teens to leave with them. They have also kidnapped a small child and left behind a murdered couple. The two main characters from the previous books set out after them. One of the children is Magnus’ foster son so this a very personal quest for him. The story as it unfolds is full of action and violence as well as quiet, surreal moments describing how nature is overtaking the land, or how technology has faded away.

Beautifully written, No Dominion paints both a dark picture of what humanity has lost, but also allows a glimmer of hope as we see the people on Orkney striving to build a community that has solid values and family connections. Although there were parts of this third volume that I found rather episodic, overall this is an intriguing and imaginative trilogy where the author has placed as much attention on character and world building as she has on the violence and action. ( )

The final volume of the trilogy is set several years later in a small community on one of the Scottish Orkney Islands. The island is where Magnus McFall's family was from, and it is where he is now living with a "son"--a plague orphan he adopted after the boy's real parents died. Stevie Flint is also living in the community, and has been elected leader of the small band of survivors. They and a small group of other survivors are eking out a living of subsistence farming and fishing, getting along fine until one day some outsiders arrive. Ultimately, the outsiders entice several of the island's teenagers, including Magnus's son, to return to the mainland where they are told that things are much better--with electricity, movies, good food etc. Magnus and Stevie take off after them, and along the way we see what 7 years of anarchy, chaos, death and destruction have done. And to top it all off, new rounds of the Sweats are back, and it may affect even those who survived the first round.
This may not have been the best choice of reading materials during our own "plague times," but I read these three compulsively, one after the other. Louise Welsh is primarily a psychological thriller writer, and I've enjoyed a few of her books in the past. These just had that extra little pandemic element tossed in, and the pandemic in these books was so bad that we can feel a little bit fortunate, as bad as covid is. ( )

This is the final book in a trilogy about what happens when a virus kills a lot of people suddenly. This novel picks up several years in the future, as the people left on Orkney Island and the people who flee there, looking for a safe place have created a self-sustaining democratic small community. The island's few teenagers, those found as lone, surviving children, often in grim circumstances, have grown bored with island life and when strangers arrive telling stories of how exciting Glasgow is, it's not difficult for them to be persuaded into running away and bringing an infant with them. Two islanders, Magnus and Stevie, are appointed to attempt to bring the children back, but what they find on the mainland means that just surviving will be a challenge.

Welsh has created a very interesting dystopian world and I've enjoyed this trilogy quite a bit despite not generally being a fan of the genre. Each book falls into a different genre, the first, A Lovely Way to Burn, a crime novel where Stevie, a young woman working as a presenter on a shopping network, tries to find out who killed her boyfriend, as the world collapses around her and no one has any interest in a simple murder. The second, Death is a Welcome Guest, follows Magnus, an up-and-coming comedian who finds himself being mistakenly arrested and instead of being released the next day, is trapped in a cell while the world convulses outside. This final book pulls together the characters from the first two novels and provides a larger picture of what happened while bringing together the characters of the first two books for a sort of grim adventure. It's a worthwhile trilogy that showcases what an excellent writer Welsh is. ( )

A strong and satisfying end to the Plague Times trilogy.
Welsh’s descriptive powers are as good as ever and this novel brings together the characters, Stevie and Magnus, from the earlier two books in a believable way.
Set seven years after the ‘Sweats’ and the events in the first two books, the story starts on the Orkneys, but goes on a taut road trip with much better controlled narrative drive than the previous books,, before some of the characters make it back to the Orkneys.

A good post-apocalyptic trilogy. ( )