Theroux, Marcel

Out on the frozen frontier of a failed state, a plane crashes at the edge of an abandoned city. The city's last citizen, Sheriff Makepeace, resolves to go in search of the planes origins. What he finds in a post-apocalyptic world is violent stockade villages, irradiated cities, and work camps laboring to harness the technologies of a vanished civilization.

Out on the far northern border of a failed state, Makepeace--sheriff and perhaps the last citizen--patrols the city ruins, salvaging books but keeping the guns in good repair.