The Names of Small Animals

by redthread

Paloma Quintana, 24 · Puerto Madryn, Chubut Province, Argentine Patagonia

When passengers fall mysteriously ill on a transatlantic cruise that departed from her coastal Patagonian town, 24-year-old field biologist Paloma Quintana realizes the rodent population boom she warned about for two years has finally turned deadly. As authorities try to scapegoat her grandmother's portside comedor, Paloma must trace the true source of the outbreak through a tourism industry that would rather bury her data than save lives, while a virus she has named a hundred times begins to reach into her own family.