The Blessed and the Beautiful (Elementary, book one, paperback)

In Fiji, in 1875, a quarter of the population died in just four months. Nobody can properly explain why.

The missionary Thomas Hale walks into the dying villages of Viti Levu with his medicine chest in his hand and his Bible under his arm, certain he is doing God’s work.

Today, historian Dan keeps a battered folder labelled Fiji 1875, and the evidence in it does not add up. When measles reached the Faroe Islands in 1846, it struck a population just as unprotected. There, about one in seventy-five died. In Fiji it was one in four.

Why was Fiji’s death rate nearly twenty times higher?

When his wife’s niece, Simran, is taken into hospital with suspected measles, Dan cannot leave the question alone. He turns to pathologist Naomi Harrington, and together they test every explanation the textbooks offer. One by one the obvious answers fall, and they are drawn towards a possibility nobody has been willing to look at.

The Blessed and the Beautiful is the first book in the Elementary series, where historical epidemics are reopened as cold cases.

Paperback. Pre-order now: ships 1 February 2027. Delivery included.