Calgary, 1892. The first symptom was a fever. The second was a riot.
When a deadly smallpox outbreak is traced to a Chinese laundry, the burgeoning frontier town of Calgary does not respond with medicine, but with a torch. The authorities burn the infected homes and imprison the entire Chinese enclave behind a quarantine wall-a cage where disease and despair are left to fester.
But within the walls is Li Wei, a laundry worker whose mind operates with the cold, precise logic of a strategist. While his community relies on tradition and prayer, Wei sees their predicament as a single, brutal equation: to survive the mob outside, they must first conquer the virus within. He turns a root cellar into a covert hospital and begins a silent war.
Using a network of invisible child spies, forged documents, and carefully planted rumors, Wei systematically dismantles the mob from the inside, manipulating friend and foe alike. But each calculated move draws him deeper into a moral darkness, distancing him from the very people he fights to save.
As the town's fear ignites into a violent fury led by a charismatic agitator, Wei must step from the shadows for a final, bloody confrontation. He is the only thing standing between his people and eradication. But in mastering the calculus of survival, he risks becoming a monster more cold and calculating than the disease itself.
Variola: Calgary 1892 is a gripping and unflinching novel that exposes a dark chapter in history, exploring the viruses that infect the body, the mind, and the soul of a city.