´All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.´ 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 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. Will Felix Hoenikker´s death wish come true? Will his last, fatal gift to humankind bring about the end that, for all of us, is nigh?