“The Patron Saint of Plagues” is a debut novel from author Barth Anderson. It is a bio-medical thriller set in a frightening near-future Mexico. Some of its action rather patently has its antecedents in blockbuster cinema, but its future politics is well-thought out, if not perfectly convincing. It is an excellent effort to bring a more international perspective to the medical epidemic literature sub-genre, and Mr. Anderson comfortably joins the ranks of such notables as Paul McAuley (even if Anderson’s not as polished yet) in expanding the world-consciousness of near-future SF.

Henry David Stark is a CDC (Centers for Disease Control) head epidemiologist, working on his grandfather’s co-op farm in Wisconsin. America is in dire straits – economically and agriculturally ravaged, having lost parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to a newly dominant Mexico. However, a virulent and deadly plague is spreading through Acension City (formerly Mexico City), and Stark is one of those called upon to help. His adventures crossing the interdicted border between the USA and Mexico constitute several of the action-movie-type sequences in the book.

Mexico is in the midst of a Renaissance of influence and power. It has been taken over by a fascist government and ruthlessly controlled. Most of the population has a sort of internal internet connection in their heads called a pillone. It primarily functions as a direct link to the government and the government-controlled Catholic Church (the result of a schism between Ascencion City and the Vatican). They have organized things along strict class lines, are militarily expansionist both towards the north and south, and have strong trade ties to Africa. However, as in any non-transparent government, corruption is rampant and response to a crisis can be inflexible. The epidemic is like none ever seen before, and appears to have been created by a very knowledgeable lone bioterrorist.

The cast is diverse, showing a lot of the variety of the future societies as they try to stop the epidemic and hunt down the terrorist plague spreader. Stark spends a lot of his time out of his element, manipulating and being manipulated by those around him. In fact he spends most of his time ignoring his grandfather’s good advice:

”And don’t jump into the middle of anything and bullshit your way out, like you usually do!”

Isabel is a partner of his from previous epidemics, a Pakistani with very creative cursing abilities. Roseangelica is Stark’s government minder, a saibhonda, a sort of mentally enhanced cyborg able to control and hack many of the government’s resources. Pedro Munoz is a Mexican doctor present at the initial outbreak, who frankly often seems like the only guy with a clue as to what is going on and how to operate. Sister Domenica is the leading voice of the opposition to the fascist government, often seen on pirated satellite TV spreading prophecies apparently from the Virgin of Guadalupe, a figure that had been appropriated by the Ascension-controlled church. She too will have her part to play in fighting the plague.

There are a lot of problems with this book when you start to look at it too closely: why did Mexico try to smuggle Stark across the interdicted border instead of sending him to a neutral country and thence to Mexico? That’s how people usually get to Cuba today. Given that Mexico now seems to possess a means of educating most of its population and appears to possess at least one excellent college, why do they actually need the international CDC effort? Why does Stark, when speaking English, refuse to use the verb “to be” in any of its forms, leading to dialogue such as:

”What going on?” said Stark. “Why you in my room?”

He doesn’t do the same when speaking Spanish, and his grandfather markedly doesn’t do it. I assume that it is meant to show the rise of Mexican erudition and the descent of America into bumpkin-ism, but it is sort of jarring and annoying. Stark and Isabel are supposed to be trusted, close friends from way back, but she spends most of the time distrusting him and sniping at him, which seems contradictory.

Be that as it may, none of these flaws, which are probably artifacts of the author’s inexperience (and which I imagine will be less evident in future books, which I’m looking forward to), should distract us from the excellent world-building. Sure, it’s not perfectly convincing (although by keeping the exact time-frame vague, he helps us suspend our disbelief), but it cuts to the core of our assumptions of American perpetual superiority, without falling straight into dystopian territory. It shows how the countries that we blithely write off as third world now could easily end-run around us given the right combination of circumstances. But it doesn’t simply present a morally superior post-colonial third world: it is well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of fascist governments, and that people of almost any culture can makes the same mistakes, enter into Faustian bargains for power. That it deftly combines all this unique and intelligent world-building with a frankly hard to put down thriller plot makes this one of the most impressive debut efforts of the year.