It is 1967. A mysterious disease appears in an English town. People fall down suddenly, poleaxed, and many die. Is it caused by a bacterium, a virus, a poison? Nobody knows, and top doctors squabble over its cause. But then two junior doctors and a young anthropology student, who has recovered from the disease, join together.

The three investigators continue their work to find out the cause of the disease, a virus whose worst effects are only shown in those who are very anxious. They think they have found the cause and the solution. But will they be in time?

This is a gripping dystopian tale, very much relevant to events unfolding today and written by Emeritus Professor of Community Psychiatry at Imperial College, London, Peter Tyrer whose long-standing interest in the connections between mental and physical health informed the novel.

Peter Tyrer is Emeritus Professor of Community Psychiatry at Imperial College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow and Honorary Fellow (by Distinction) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is still actively researching environmental treatments for mental illness and health anxiety. These outcomes come to the fore in Poleaxed. He has published 620 original articles and thirty-five books, mainly for specialist readers but sometimes for the general public, and his current quest is to make the intricate details of medical and mental health practice more accessible to the general public, by writing fiction from the viewpoint of an insider, not a spectator or a voyeur. He has also written a play (The Death of King John) and an operetta about Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Peter lives in Newark, Notts.