When the head of a pharmaceutical company collapses in a beachfront estate on Mutiny Bay, Whidbey Island deputy Roger Wilkie expects a routine homicide—well, as routine as this island ever gets. Instead, he walks into a hemorrhagic disaster caused by a mutated strain of everyday bacteria that really should've stayed in the lab.

With help from his microbiologist wife, his too-eager new deputy, and a returning federal agent, Wilkie follows the trail to a global black-market pipeline. Someone engineered the bug, someone else mass-produced it, and an arms dealer helpfully shipped it to bad actors from Syria to the Sahel.

The bug is tiny. The mess is enormous. And unless Wilkie cracks the case fast, Mutiny Bay won't be the only thing melting down.