Louise Welsh - Death is a Welcome Guest

The Bubonic Plague still exists in parts of China and America. Its final outbreak in Glasgow, the city where I live, was in 1907 and was quickly dealt with. We need not fear another mass outbreak of the disease. But scientists are agreed that there will be another pandemic at some point in the near future. What it will be, when it will hit, and how many will die is uncertain. All we can be sure of is that it will come.

Thanks are due to several people who helped me during the writing of this book. Roland Philipps and Eleanor Birne of John Murray have both been enthusiastic supporters of the Plague Times trilogy. They have given me invaluable care and editorial advice.

My agent, David Miller of Rogers, Coleridge and White, cast his beady eye over the manuscript several times and discussed it with insight and good sense. He has saved me from devastating geographical mistakes and much more.

As usual I have neglected my friends and family in favour of books and the blank page. Thanks once again to them for sticking with me.

Special thanks are due to my partner, the writer Zoë Strachan who has been living surrounded by plagues and pandemics for a few years now. She read this book at the early and later stages and it is much improved for her rigour and expertise.