Contagion

October 1, 2010
A spirited young woman encounters murder and deception as Philadelphia battles deadly typhoid in 1895. Married to wealthy, arrogant Irish contractor Patrick Dugan, 18-year-old Rose finds her husband attractive but troubling. When Rose and her friend Nellie volunteer on the park-beautification committee to preserve the city waterworks, she meets the sympathetic chief engineer, Sean Parker, who becomes Patrick's bitter rival over a controversial proposal to build an expensive water-filtration plant. Sean's attracted to Rose and feels protective after she receives threatening letters and Nellie is killed under mysterious circumstances while wearing Rose's cloak. Rose's loyalty to Patrick wavers when he's implicated in the typhoid epidemic. In alternating voices tinged with Victorian formality, Rose and Sean relate this story of duplicity, greed and contagion, adding immediacy to the twisted plot and historical detail. A gripping read with a feisty heroine, despite the wordy text, often purple prose and heavy focus on water treatment. (Historical fiction. 13 & up)

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December 15, 2010
Grades 7-10 Beautiful young Rose Dugan seems to have everythinguntil we quickly realize that her dashing, prominent husband has all the makings of a menacing sociopath. Politics, romance, power, corruption, and strands of gothic horror combine into a suspense novel in which evil forces threaten the safety of nineteenth-century Philadelphias clean water supply. Scheming businessman Patrick Dugan wants a lucrative city contract to build a filtration system that would safeguard the water and protect the city against the very real threat of typhoid fever. He will do anything to prove the city is at risk and ruthlessly dispenses of anyone who stands in his way. The bad guys are so bad and the good ones so pure that readers will have fun following the misadventures to see just how Mr. Dugan will get snared by his own web. The elements of disease and bioterrorism lend an interesting contemporary perspective to the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)