At the start of the twentieth century, a period that commemorates infamous shipwrecks and the war to end all wars, a more powerful and efficient killer unleashed an unimaginable horror to humanity. Experts debate the final toll attributable to Spanish influenza, citing up to two hundred million dead. Erupting in 1918, millions of healthy young adults succumb to the virus, literally drowning in the bloody mucus filling their lungs. Every corner of the globe was infected. There is no sanctuary from the virus. The following summer, it mysteriously disappeared, leaving the deadliest pandemic in history. This is the incredible true story of humanity's most prolific killer told by those who lived, suffered, and died. Readers journey through the twentieth century, following revolutionary discoveries that set in motion a microbiological investigation by an unlikely group of brilliant and quirky scientists who may be mankind's only hope in avoiding a twenty-first-century pandemic.