Variola: Calgary 1892

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. W...