Pale Rider

With superb investigative skill and a delightfully light-hearted writing style, Spinney extends her analysis far beyond the relatively short duration of the plague… I’ve seldom had so much fun reading about people dying. * The Times *Weaves together global history and medical science to great effect … Riveting. * Sunday Times *Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story… Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past. * Guardian *Vividly recreated, grimly fascinating… Coolly, crisply and with a consistently sharp eye for the telling anecdote, Spinney … demonstrates how the Spanish flu cast a long shadow over the 20th century. * Daily Mail *Magisterial. * Observer *

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and a literary novelist. She is the author of two novels and her writing on science has appeared in National Geographic, Nature, The Economist and The Telegraph, among others. Born in the UK, she has also lived in France and Switzerland.