Robert Harris | The Second Sleep
The Second Sleep by Robert Harris is an ingenious and atmospheric thriller that blends historical fiction, speculative science fiction and mystery into a provocative exploration of civilisation and its fragility. As dusk falls, young priest Christopher Fairfax travels through the wild landscape of Exmoor towards a remote village, where he has been sent to conduct the funeral of a fellow clergyman. The world around him appears rooted in a distant past, yet the countryside is scattered with mysterious artefacts left behind by a civilisation destroyed in an unexplained catastrophe.
When Fairfax discovers forbidden objects among the dead priest's possessions, his curiosity leads him towards questions the Church would rather leave unanswered. What begins as a simple journey gradually becomes a dangerous investigation into the nature of the past and the foundations of his own world. Cleverly playing with our assumptions about history and the future, The Second Sleep is a compelling thriller about religion, science, technological dependence and how quickly the knowledge accumulated by a civilisation can disappear.
- • Publisher: Penguin Random House UK / Cornerstone
• Language: English
• Cover: Paperback
• Paperback release date: July 9, 2020
• Number of pages: 448
• Dimensions: 197 × 129 × 29 mm
• Weight: approximately 312 g
• Original publication of the novel: 2019
• Genre: Thriller, science fiction, speculative fiction, mystery, post-apocalyptic literature






