Richard Preston
The Hot Zone (1994)
Author: Richard Preston
Genre: Nonfiction (Medical Thriller)
Book Summary:
Deep in the jungle of Africa there lurks a killer, one that ventures into the human population and has the ability to kill up to 90% of its victims. When Marburg (named for Marburg, Germany where it was discovered) broke into the human population, infection transferring from wild monkeys into their caretakers, it was the first filovirus discovered and has since been determined to be the gentlest of the filovirus sister's that can infect humans. Ebola Sudan and Ebola Zaire were later discovered in Africa, though the natural host is still unknown. Then, in 1989, a shipment of monkeys in quarantine in Reston, Virginia began to grow sick and die. As the sickness spreads throughout the monkey house, the veterinarian calls in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and it becomes the responsibility of the Army and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to contain the crisis and prevent further outbreak.
Geographical Setting: Reston, Virginia
Time Period: Present Day
Appeal Characteristics:
This is a very character-driven story, however in this case the character in question is the Ebola virus itself, a Level 4 pathogen. While the pace tends to slow while Preston introduces and describes other characters, he still manages to keep the story compelling to the reader. The first half of the story is slower and mostly set in Africa, tracing the origins of the first outbreaks of the Ebola virus, while the second half moves more quickly as it becomes more of a plot driven tale about the outbreak and is divided between the monkey house in Reston, Virginia and Fort Detrick in Fredrick, Maryland. Preston goes into great (and sometimes gory) detail as he describes the virus, how it affects its victims and how it is believed to be transmitted.
Read-alikes: For nonfiction: In The Demon in the Freezer (2002) Richard Preston introduces the reader to the disease smallpox, a level 4 disease, and the bids to turn it into a biological weapon and to create a drug to defend against it. He works once again with Peter Jahrling, one of the co-discoverers of Ebola Reston, as the researcher at USAMRIID researches the question of if it could have possibly been weaponized and what to do if it has. In Virus Hunter : Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World (1998), CJ Peters, a former Army Colonel and a key player in containing the outbreak in Reston, offers his first person perspective on the events at Reston as well as his other adventures chasing down disease in this memoir. Level 4 - Joseph McCormick - Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC (1996) is a memoir shared by Joseph McCormick, one of the CDC scientists present during the Reston outbreak, and his wife, Susan Fisher-Hoch, about their travels researching hemorrhagic viral diseases such as Ebola, Lassa and Marburg. Also, The Coming Plague : Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (1995) by Laurie Garrett details how various diseases, not just Ebola and Marburg, can travel around the world, mutating as they do so. For fiction titles: In Isolation Ward (2006), Joshua Spanogle gives the reader compelling story set in Baltimore, where an unknown virus has broken into the population and has put three victims in the hospital. For additional fun, his main character, who works for the CDC, shares a last name with one of the key CDC officials participating in the Reston containment. In the first chapter The Hot Zone the author describes the idea of a network created by airline flights that connected the jungle from where the virus came to everything city in the world, and how one of the first victims, by getting on a flight to go to Nairobi Hospital he has entered that net and risks the potential of the virus jumping to anywhere in the world. If a reader is interested in a story based on the premise of an unknown pathogen entering that net, then Pandora's Clock (1996) by John J. Nance would be a good readalike.
Red Flags:
adult language, extensive, graphic description of how Ebola affects a victim.
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