THE WINTER STATION

In this sweeping, suspenseful novel an aristocratic Russian doctor is racing to stop a deadly plague that is spreading from an outpost city in Manchuria to the rest of the world.

In 1910, people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. The dead bodies vanish before they can be identified, and it is suspected that travelers are carrying a strange illness into the city.

The Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city's medical commissioner, is determined to solve the deaths and the secrecy behind them. During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron is pulled between duty and compassion, between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition. While battling to isolate the plague, the Baron finds camaraderie with a French doctor, collaborates with a black marketeer, and cultivates an unexpected friendship with a Chinese dwarf. His greatest refuge is the intimacy he shares with his young Chinese wife.

Insulated from the rest of the world, with a spiraling body count, the quarantined city struggles to survive.

Based on a true story that has been lost to history, this epidemic was unlike any other, before or since: it was one hundred percent fatal. Set during the last days of imperial Russia, THE WINTER STATION is a richly textured and brilliant novel about mortality, fear and love.

Jody Shields is the author of The Fig Eater which was an international bestseller and praised as "an atmospheric thriller" (LA Times).