It was 2005, and Scottish author Peter May had just finished researching the Spanish Flu, which lasted from January 1918 to December 1920, and left 500 million people infected. That's about a third of the world's population at the time. He had decided that his next book in his China series would be inspired by a pandemic. But when his publisher brought about an to the China series, he thought he'd write it as a standalone book, with London as the backdrop. But as fate would have it, publishers considered the crime thriller, which spoke of a grand city coming to a standstill because of a virus, unrealistic. And, the manuscript went straight into his bottom drawer.

Until now.