KILLING FOG

When the Great Smog of London kills four thousand people in five days, junior Ministry of Health official Edith Cross receives a verified mortality analysis that contradicts the government position. Her minister instructs her to falsify the data before the election. Working alone through procedural channels, Cross routes the evidence to a Parliamentary committee. Her mother dies in a hospital that has run out of oxygen. Cross presents the mortality tables to the Parliamentary Health Committee using a procedural mechanism never before invoked. An official inquiry is announced. The Clean Air Act passes four years later.