Whiteout

Whiteout is a thriller by Ken Follett, published in 2004 and set in Scotland over a single snowbound Christmas.

Toni Gallo is head of security at a Scottish medical research company, and she knows she has failed when a test rabbit used in work on a more dangerous form of the Ebola virus is taken from the laboratory. It becomes much worse when the virus itself is stolen too, apparently with help from inside the company, and the thieves intend to use it. With a blizzard closing the roads on Christmas Eve and little assistance from the local police, Toni has to pursue the thieves, recover the virus and protect the future of the laboratory. Meanwhile Stanley Oxenford, the company's director, is hosting his grown children at his house nearby, and they have their own interest in the drug he has been developing, because of the money it will bring them.

Follett keeps the action close to a small group of people and a single storm, and the pressure comes from the combination of a scientific disaster and an ordinary family argument.