Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

 

Vera is a statistics and probability professor and she believes in logic and order.  She also believes her mother will not like it when she comes out as gay and engaged to Annie and she is right about that.  Her mother tells her that it's just a phase and then leaves the restaurant in a huff.  Vera goes after her and into mass chaos.  Strange things are happening everywhere.  There are monsters and fires and her mother is killed right beside her by a car whose driver has been killed also.

That is the Low Probability Event and millions died that day all over the world, although the majority were Americans.  Vera's worldview is trashed immediately and she retreats into herself.  Four years later, she has become a recluse, only leaving her house when she must to buy supplies.  Otherwise, she spends hours staring at the ceiling and thinking about that day.

Then Special Agent Layne shows up at her door.  He tells her that he is from the agency that helps survivors and he needs her help to investigate a casino that seems to be connected somehow to the Low Probability Event.  Vera tells him no but Layne is persuasive and soon the two head off to Las Vegas.  Can they discover the cause of the LPE and make sure it never happens again?

Chuck Tingle is a pseudonym of a writer who identifies as autistic and who has a unique style of writing.  He started out writing short stories and then moved into writing novels in the fantasy/horror genre.  His characters are generally gay and his work has become steadily more popular.  In this title, strange occurrences abound but eventually all the threads are brought together and resolved.  This book is recommended for fantasy/science fiction readers.