Bleak Midwinter

In an Oxford hospital, intern Rajiv Mahendra encounters a patient with rare symptoms that are disturbingly familiar. In India, the disease is known as bubonic plague. The last time it occurred on a large scale in Europe, it was known as the Black Death, killing nearly a third of the population. Driven by morbid curiosity, history student Daniel Warren slips into the hospital to see the patient, where he is discovered by a reporter from a local newspaper. In a misguided attempt to keep her quiet, Warren reveals that the patient had been working on a building site that was once an old plague pit. Could this long-dormant scourge have been reawakened? It seems impossible, but is it?