In The Flu Is Coming, a new type of flu - the Philippine flu -kills nearly half of the residents in an upscale, gated community near Albuquerque in less than a week. Those who survive become virtual prisoners in their homes when a quarantine is imposed. The Centers of Disease Control recruits Sara Almquist, a resident of the community and a scientist, to apply her skills as an epidemiologist to find ways to limit the spread of the epidemic. As she pries into her neighbors' lives, she finds promising scientific clues. Unfortunately, she also learns too much about several of them and violence ensues when several try to escape the quarantine.