The year is 1960, and strange events are occurring in the small border town of Galina. Is it a new disease, a toxin or something else that is affecting half the residents? Anza Kearney and her friends find themselves in a desperate race to get to the source of the problem before their hometown tears itself apart. Meanwhile, sixty years later in the present day, the old affliction has come back to haunt a new generation, who must discover what links the sufferers to the events of the past.

Red Hail brings together themes of family, belonging, religion, suspicion and racial tensions as it builds an intriguing mystery that is woven across two timelines. The teenage heroine of the 1960 chapters is especially engaging, and her small-town world is vividly brought to life. The pacing of the story is tuned to perfection, the action accelerating as we draw closer to uncovering the central mysteries.

Overall, this is one of the best books I’ve read in the past 12 months. For me, its greatest appeal is actually not in the detail of the enigmatic root of Galina’s problems, but in the fascinating study of the way people react to a terrifying new sickness (if indeed it is a sickness) – a subject that is very relevant to current events at the time of my reading it. In 1960s Galina, suspicion and mistrust begin to reign supreme as the symptoms spread through the community, with dire consequences – a cautionary tale for the times we’re living through in April 2020.