The Visitor by Terry Tyler

In 2024, a mystery virus ravages the entire world. 'Bat Fever' is highly contagious and a hundred per cent lethal.

A cottage tucked away in an isolated Norfolk village seems like the ideal place to sit out a catastrophic pandemic, but some residents of Hincham resent the arrival of Jack, Sarah and their friends, while others want to know too much about them.

What the villagers don't know is that beneath Sarah's cottage is a fully-stocked, luxury survival bunker. A post-apocalyptic 'des res'.

Hincham isolates itself from the rest of the country, but the deaths continue―and not from the virus. There's a killer on the loose, but is it a member of the much-depleted community, or someone from outside? As the body count rises, paranoia sets in; friend suspects friend, and everyone suspects the newcomers.

Most terrifying of all is that no one knows who's next on the list...

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I know, I know. You're thinking 'why would anyone want to read this kind of story right now?' Call me crazy, but I find them weirdly comforting. And, as the author's notes say; although this book takes place during a major pandemic, the pandemic itself isn't the point; it's just the reason the rest of the plot happens. 

I'd love to read the companion series (is this the companion title? Not really sure which way it works...) as this plague is creepy and fantastically well written. I absolutely expected to find out that the vaccine didn't work, but if that does happen in the series, it's not in this one; the vaccinated characters ramble around more or less with impunity.

I had my suspicions about the murderer, and I had it down to two when the person tipped their hand. I still couldn't be sure about either of them, though, which shows the clever writing and planning. Admittedly I'm not the best at murder mysteries, so other readers might solve it faster than I did.

A fantastic read, one I really enjoyed.