Ballad of Typhoid Mary

For forty years she roamed New York like an angel of death.A typhoid carrier - herself immune but lethal to her unsuspecting victims - Mary Mallon bore her disease over the thresholds and into the kitchens of the elite homes, hotels and hospitals of nineteenth century New York. Always moving on before the authorities could catch up with her, she bought death to untold thousands. Yet her only crime was her refusal to give up her sole - and deadly- source of cooking.From the Typhoid Mary, JF Federspiel has created this bizarre and haunting novel.