SOLVED. postapocalyptic society - politics, grain silo, monastery in Canada [s]

[Daphne]

I remember a ton about this book, although not the title. I read it within the last ten years, although I think closer to 5.

The book opens where this one man (the hero) is doing some grunt work in a chain gang. One or more teenage girls are nearby and they get into physical danger. The hero saves them. One of the girls is the daughter of an important political figure in the community. The chain gang boss gets mad at the hero and says something like "you aren't part of that world now, you're just a common criminal".

There was some kind of disaster and the world is rebuilding. The community is in America.

The hero has a mentor, an old man who is involved in scientific pursuits. This makes them (the mentor and the hero) important to the powers that be. But there was a falling out and the hero got in trouble.

There's a nearby community who isn't doing as well. They have a famine. The hero wants to give them food but the local leaders don't want to. At some point in the book, people from the neighbors (led by a woman) come and poison or destroy the local grain silo. The woman is or was the hero's friend once? And beforehand the hero had a discussion on why this was a bad tactic, with someone (the mentor, or the political bigwig guy, or maybe the woman herself).

There's a lot of plot. The hero either gets kidnapped or voluntarily goes looking for a criminal gang, who turns out to be living in a previous monastery in Canada. He got there by boat. A woman may have gone with him, maybe the same one as the woman from the neighboring community.

And the mentor dies. The hero discovers something in his papers that incriminates the local bigwig politician? Or that incriminates the mentor?

The book ends fairly happily. The criminal gang is defeated. The neighboring community becomes allied to the hero's community. And the political bigwig either steps down or is more or less stripped of power and remains as a figurehead.

I keep feeling like the author's first name is Allen.

[Ayshe]

Ashes of the Earth: A Mystery of Post-Apocalyptic America? I haven't read it but sounds like possibility.

[Daphne]

Yes, that is it exactly. I didn't mention this, but I remembered the reddish cover and that there was a piece of writing on it. Thanks!