This article draws on Jacques Derrida’s and Roberto Esposito’s conceptualisations of the immunitarian paradigm to analyse the Slovenian crime novel The Virus. In the first part, we examine the links between neoliberalism and the rise of the Slovenian authoritarian state during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the second part, we show that the neoliberal ethos is expressed in the figure of the self-serving and self-disciplined detective, in the nature of desocialised and privatised crime, and in the figure of the self-righteous criminal. Although the actions of the detective and the criminal are autoimmunitarian, both function – paradoxically – as guardians of the common good by pursuing private interests. In the final section, we deconstruct the binary oppositions underlying the dual status of murdered victims, who are simultaneously criminally responsible and possess an unusual (non-heteronormative) or pathological sexual identity.Članek s pomočjo imunitarne paradigme Jacquesa Derridaja in Roberta Esposita analizira slovenski detektivski roman Virus. V prvem delu raziskujemo vezi med neoliberalizmom in vzponom slovenske avtoritarne države v času prvega vala pandemije covid-19. V drugem delu pokažemo, da je neoliberalni etos reprezentiran v liku sebičnega in samodiscipliniranega detektiva, v značaju nedružbenega in privatiziranega zločina ter v značaju samopravičniškega zločinca. Dejanja detektiva in zločinca so avtoimunitarna. Čeprav protislovno oba delujeta kot zavetnika skupnega dobrega, oba sledita zasebnim interesom. V zadnjem delu dekonstruiramo binarna nasprotja, na katerih temelji dvojni status umorjenih žrtev, ki so zločinsko odgovorne in posedujejo nenavadno (neheteronormativno) ali patološko spolno identiteto
