Killing Fever is a new kind of book – an historical thriller that’s also an historical thrill. Historian and novelist Andy Warwick uses a mysterious death and wrongful arrest in 1857 to light the fuse on an explosive story of science, medicine, and empire. From a corpse in a dingy, London basement to the jungles of Bengal, Killing Fever builds a global history through the people who made it happen. Some are victors, some victims, but can you tell them apart? Visit the author's website: www.cybervictoriana.com for more information and resources.
"Killing Fever is a remarkable and improbable book: an engrossing, page-turning thriller that’s also a global history of science, technology and medicine. I’m looking forward to discussing it with my students. It provides an engaging and novel way to understand and debate the practice of science, imperial history and its interpretations, and how historians should analyze and communicate the tangled relationship between imperialism and scientific progress." - Erica Charters, Professor of Global History of Medicine, University of Oxford
"Most histories are analytical: they take their subject apart to see how it works. Andy Warwick’s meticulously researched Killing Fever does the exact opposite. It uses a novelistic form – fictive history – to uncover the myriad voices, topics and situations he unearthed in the virtual Victorian world of online sources. While proffering a global history, it spans just three days ‑ and is subjective, told by a stranger from rural Bengal. Its achievement is to be inclusive, organic and extremely engaging, an original vision of how the history of Victorian science, technology and medicine can be told. This is historical fiction at its very best; it is historically accurate and precise and directly relevant to current themes in the field including global history, local knowledge and knowledge transfer. It is truly a great read." - Myles Jackson, Albers-Schönberg Professor in the History of Science, Princeton University
“Loved it! Hell of a lot of fun. It dragged me right in, and I polished it off in two days.” - Dr. Joseph D. Martin, History of Science and Technology, Durham University