Dan Floyd, a retired and widowed lawyer, is doing his best to fill his time?attending church, keeping in touch with his two adult sons, and reading up on epidemics. When he comes down with what seems like garden-variety flu, he amuses himself by studying plagues, both modern-day varieties and the biblical kind. Dan and his sons, one of whom is a doctor, share information and speculate about epidemics. Meanwhile, in the community around him, he begins to hear of people dying from complications brought on by the flu?many of whom attend his church. Dan soon finds himself investigating members of the Starkherz family, three generations of doctors; it seems the Starkherzes were working with the H1N1 influenza virus?the source of the flu epidemic of 1918?1919?in an attempt to neutralize it. Could their work serve as the source for a twenty-first-century flu pandemic? In this novel, a retired lawyer works with his sons to discover the source of a deadly influenza epidemic that threatens their lives and the lives of everyone around them.
