The making of a finished book is always a team endeavor. I greatly appreciate the thoughtful comments, upon reading repeated versions of Fever, from Danielle Lavaque-Manty, Ann Epstein, Cynthia Jalynski, Marty Calvert, Jane Johnson, and Margaret Nesse. My agent Cynthia Manson has been loyal and diligent to the end, and my editor, Megan Trank, and her associates at Beaufort Books have been incredibly supportive through the publishing phase. Finally, I am forever grateful to scientists worldwide who doggedly, and usually out of the limelight, work to better understand the mysterious ways in which microbes infect people.