This book is subtitled A Tale of Fear, Science and Heroism but sadly, the science plays a very minimal part. The author is much more concerned with the personalities, motives and politics involved in the competition between Alexander Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato to be the first to pin down the cause of the disease in the first years of its third historical pandemic, while the responsible authorities failed to contain the outbreak. It is not an edifying account and throws little credit on anyone involved, save Yersin. The style, too, is a bit overblown for my taste: "Plague, the most feared and least understood of all contagious diseases, was back....the start of a global meltdown...."