There is an invisible weapon among us. By the time you know you are a victim, it has turned you into a killer. A blistering new non-fiction thriller from the Baillie Gifford shortlisted author of Nuclear War (200,000 copies sold).

A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario.

It would be only a matter of days before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for survival. The fallout: mass death, societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization.

There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small and malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result.

This is what could happen; a roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.

About the Author

Annie Jacobsen is the bestselling author of Nuclear War- A Scenario, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

A 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, her other books include Operation Paperclip, Phenomena and The Pentagon's Brain, and have been translated into 26 languages.

She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two sons.