At a glance, it is obvious that this is a very attractively presented book, which, for such an unpleasant condition, might sound a bit odd. It functions as both an atlas and a very well-edited, authoritative, multi-author text. Colour reproduction of endoscopic surgery is prolific and is of excellent print quality. There is many a computed tomography, especially those with three-dimensional reconstruction, and the magnetic resonance imaging scans are well labelled and carry a clear legend to the illustrations. On rare occasions there has been an attempt to pack in too much, resulting in over 20 slices in a single small illustration, which prove indecipherable. Fortunately, this is compensated by the reproduction of most of these illustrations in the many accompanying videos.

The opening chapter reminds us that mucormycosis predates the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) era and describes the traditional risk factors, and the role of iron (Who knew that? I did not) and of host immunity. Successive waves of Covid-19 saw a massive rise in the prevalence of such a destructive fungal disease, especially throughout India, where courageous surgeons rapidly developed a unique expertise. The opening paragraph to Chapter 10, on a surgical staging system, tells us that ‘its prevalence is 80 times higher in India than in developed nations’ (their phrase, not mine; this is a country that has soft landed on the moon after all). Again, we learn that ‘India has the second largest diabetic population in the world’, hence the scale of the problem.

There are chapters here that will appeal to rhinologists and skull base, maxillofacial or orbital surgeons, plus, of course, anaesthetists. Post-operative medical therapy and treatment of complications draw the text towards its close, but a particularly well-thought-out final chapter, Exploring the Future, covers such topics as advances in imaging, neuronavigation, pharmacology, orbital reconstruction and antiviral vaccine development.

The book's greatest appeal will be to surgeons from the subcontinent of India, while most of us can just be glad to be spared this challenge. The editors and publishers are to be congratulated on producing a book that I had expected, as a reviewer, to find hard going, frankly. I did not, however, and would highly recommend this text to trainees and experienced surgeon who are likely to encounter mucormycosis, but let us remember that this disease is not confined to India, it is just that it is there that all the expertise has developed.