The Darkest of Nights by Charles Eric Maine

Hueste existing in two competing strains, the AB is invariably fatal while the BA causes only a minor fever then conveys immunity but the unstable virus produces both isomers in the cells of all who are infected meaning even those who are now themselves immune to the killer form still carry it and can infect others. The Hueste virus is no ordinary infection so named because it was first isolated by the German virologist Doctor Ludwig Hueste working in China and speculated to be a mutation caused in the influenza virus caused by radioactivity in the atmosphere following nuclear testing, its path as it swept across Asia was tracked by the International Virus Research Organisation who were unable to stop it.ĭoctor Pauline Brant was due to travel home from Japan to see her husband but is instead met by his request for a divorce so he can be free to accept a job in America with his new love, so she throws herself into working for the British branch of the IVRO to assist in the Hueste crisis, the first cases already detected in Europe despite attempts to limit travel to control the spread as the world faces the darkest of nights.įormerly foreign correspondent for the Monitor, journalist Clive Brant’s first assignment as an executive at soon-to-be-launched film and television production company is to try to ascertain the global impact of the epidemic, but all he finds are closed doors and official denials, while rumours continue that the situation is far, far worse than anyone will admit, the dead and dying piling up faster than they can be disposed of.

The Darkest of Nights by Charles Eric Maine