Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague

“A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston.” —Tina Jordan, New York Times Book Review podcast

On March 6, 1900, the bubonic plague took its first victim on American soil: Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown—but when corrupt politicians mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate. <…