At first it's the dead rats - they start dying in cataclysmic numbers. Then people begin experiencing flu-like symptoms. The masses react in disbelief when the official diagnosis comes in and later, when a quarantine is imposed on the increasingly terrified city. Told with dark humour and an eye trained on the frailties of human behaviour, Chong's novel explores themes in keeping with Albert Camus' original vision - heroism in the face of futility, the psychological strain of quarantine - but fraught with the political and cultural anxieties of our times.