I read “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston years ago. I am a big fan of medical thrillers. So a nonfiction medical thriller was no-brainer. Plus, seeing the blurb on the back of the book by Stephen King I had to buy it. The quote started out like this:

“The first chapter is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read in my whole life...and then it gets worse...” Stephen King

The story told in “The Hot Zone” happened minutes from my house in the same town that my son went to school. Preston described in his book how the government attempted to cover up this event. He was dead-on. The only thing I ever heard was a DJ say, “There’s something going on at the monkey house.”

“Crisis in the Red Zone” (successor to “The Hot Zone”) is about the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak, the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, and the outbreak in 1976.

There were six known species of Ebola, now there are seven.

Richard Preston does a great job detailing where the breakout started and how it expanded.

I must admit, after reading about this strain, to wondering if some of these diseases are government engineered and released in Africa.

Kudos to Preston for reporting on this story.

I will not be stepping foot in Africa after reading his books. They have too many nasty diseases going on over there.

Reviews posted at:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/crisis-in-the-red-zone
https://www.amazon.com/review/R2HBARSUMPQHVK
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2887865388
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greatbooksgroup/
I also posted a review on Barnes & Noble. It finally showed up on the Nook app only, but not when I look on the PC. It seems to be run together, but it's there. LOL B&N can be quite challenging at times. I don't see a link from the app.

Richard Preston is at the top of the tower of telling the chilling reality of infectious disease. A true master in investigative journalism. For those that have read The Hot Zone and think they've read this book by Richard Preston before will be very surprised at how he goes to tell the story of the most recent Ebola crisis in Sierra Leon, Guinea, and Liberia. He truly delves into the character of those nurses and doctors that have chose to stay in their native countries to be on the front lines of infectious disease their whole lives, and the politics of international organizations that bring aid during outbreaks.

Richard Preston starts with the telling of the first outbreak of Ebola in the Congo and parallels that tale with the most recent outbreak. It shows that we have not come a long way in managing the spread of infectious diseases and things may be worse before they get better.

He also shows that what may appear to be unique causes in the spread of disease in Africa may not in fact be unique. Many of the pathways for Ebola to spread would cause it to spread in the USA Europe, etc. Would you not caress and comfort a dying loved one? Would you not select to try to recover from an illness at home?

This story is gripping and compelling. Everyone should read it.

I read The Hot Zone over a decade ago, and I instantly fell in love with Richard Preston’s writing. As someone who has always loved science, especially virology, Ebola was always the virus that I found to be the most fascinating and also most terrifying. It’s one of the simplest viruses (as contagious as the common cold), it has the capacity to cross-species jump and evolve, and it completely decimates the human immune system in just 7-10 days (something that takes YEARS for HIV to do). That being said, I have always dreamt of becoming an epidemiologist for the CDC and working in the Hazmat suits on Biosafety Level 4. When I found out that he was doing a follow up to my beloved The Hot Zone, I couldn’t request the book fast enough!

Richard Preston does an incredible job of immersing you into the gruesome reality of Ebola outbreaks. He doesn’t spare you the gorey details. When The Hot Zone was first released in 1994, the seriousness of the Ebola virus did not really register for many Americans since it was a virus that was mostly confined to Africa, and there wasn’t widespread media coverage in the 1970s to really highlight the grim reality. The recent outbreak in 2014, brought Ebola into international spotlight, and The Crisis in the Red Zone provides the details that the media outlets did not have access to.

Preston is able to humanize Ebola. He is able to take the medical and scientific jargon surrounding viruses as a whole and make them digestible to all audiences. He recounts stories of medical workers who attempted to save patients and their horrifying experiences in the Ebola wards. (If medical procedures and bodily fluids that are described in painstaking detail make you queasy, this will most definitely not be for you.) The story alternates between the original 1976 outbreak to the 2014 outbreak to answer what has been learned about Ebola and its evolution during that time period.

Overall, this was another fantastic piece by Richard Preston that gives even more insight into this virus as well as provides hope for a future where we are ultimately able to eradicate this virus once and for all.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an eARC. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.

4.5/5 stars, rounded up!

Blog post: https://thereadingchemist.com/2019/07/22/book-review-crisis-in-the-red-zone-by-richard-preston-earc/

"Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time. Nobody knows the origin of viruses--how they came into existence or when they appeared in the history of life on earth. Viruses may be examples or relics of life forms that operated at the dawn of life. Viruses may have come into existence with the first stirrings of life on the planet, roughly four billion years ago."

Richard Preston, author of several bestselling narrative nonfiction titles about infectious diseases, returns to the territory he's best known for. In 1994, he published The Hot Zone, a page-turning, nail-biting account of the Ebola virus told through the Marburg strain's appearance in patient zero, alongside the story of a strain reaching the US. It's gotten an intense, important sequel two decades after its initial publication.

Crisis in the Red Zone puts faces to the staggering numbers of the West African Ebola epidemic that began raging in 2014, of victims and the doctors and health workers who risked - and sometimes lost - their lives trying to care for patients and curb the epidemic. The deadliest outbreak to date, the Makona strain responsible left 7% of the doctors in Sierra Leone dead. Providing background, Preston depicts events from the 1976 outbreak in Zaire, believed to be the first jump of the virus into humans.

The red zone is the section of tents with strict biocontainment measures, cloistered in the center of a typical Ebola treatment unit within Doctors Without Borders and sectioned off behind fences. Red zones are for known infection cases: "Patients die in the red zone; they are not permitted to die anywhere else."

On the ground in Sierra Leone, employing his trademark rich detail and smooth story structure, Preston creates portraits of several African doctors and healthcare workers as well as some sent from various international aid and research agencies. Primary among these are Dr. Sheik Umar Khan and epidemiologists Lina Moses and Lisa Hensley from the NIH working in diagnostic and research capacities. As he did in The Hot Zone, Preston shapes their experience into highly readable and telling story arcs, letting events play out in harrowing real time, allowing readers to follow developments as they progress.

This includes the fear and the learning that characterized their work, as they watched the epidemic explode despite their best efforts, grappled with superstition and misunderstanding, and endured the pain of having to diagnose colleagues or be diagnosed themselves.

"The African medical professionals gave their lives trying to rescue one another, and, at the same time, they served as a thin, dissolving line of sacrifice in which they stood between the virus and you and me."

It's laden with the psychological burden staff were saddled with -- if they treated patients who were bleeding out, they risked infecting themselves. One distressing scene depicts nurses assisting in a procedure on an infected, pregnant colleague. After delivering her baby, they realize the gravity of the situation, covered as they are in fluid and thus, Ebola particles. Preston emphasizes that the virus has been able to thrive thanks to exactly this human capacity for care, including the cultural rituals in the affected West African countries of washing and mourning the dead.

"The Ebola parasite got into a human network of affection and care, the ties of humanity that join each person ultimately to every other person on earth."

It didn't help that science is still learning about the virus, and people in affected communities know much less. It's hard to help them understand the magnitude of what it's capable of, and what it is in its makeup, when what they see is loved ones going to medical centers where they're supposed to heal and instead come out dead, attended by spacesuit-wearing, faceless personnel.

And what are viruses, actually? With his remarkable skill for breaking down complex scientific subjects, making them almost poetic, Preston tackles that, capturing something of their strange existence: "Viruses carry on their existence in a misty borderland that lies between life and death, a gray zone where the things we encounter are neither provably alive nor certainly dead."

He has an incredible gift for scientific and biological writing, not only making it engrossing but accessible to readers like me with limited background and understanding of fields like epidemiology and virology. Yet it never feels like he's talking down to better-versed readers. 

He seems more cautious thanks to some of the criticisms of broad generalizations made in The Hot Zone. Although he traces the genesis of the Makona strain in a story about a boy and a bat, he's careful in identifying what's guesswork and speculation.

"History turns on unnoticed things. Small, hidden events can have ripple effects, and the ripples can grow. A child touches a bat...a woman riding on a bus bumps against someone who isn't feeling well...an email gets buried...a patient isn't found...and suddenly the future arrives."

I'd hoped it would go more in-depth on where this is headed in future -- so, if a Level 4 virus does cross the virosphere into humans, but I guess the apocalyptic-sounding picture he describes of a woefully unprepared, economically imbalanced US says all it needs to. Ethical issues play a big role in this narrative, with serious future implications. When the heroic Dr. Khan contracts the virus himself, the thorny debate arises of whether he should be given an experimental treatment drug not available to all patients. These stories are gut-wrenching, morally complex, sensitively told, and exquisitely written, leaving the reader with deeper understanding and appreciation of the complications. 4.5/5

"Though this story focuses on a few people at certain moments in time, I hope it can be thought of as a window that looks at the future of everyone."

The Hot Zone stuck in my mind for years. Preston has returned to the subject of Ebola to further inform us - and this one has joined the first in the canon of books one should read to understand the public health challenges we will face in the future. By placing this story in the voices of the individuals most affected, Preston brings the issue home. There are a lot of characters this time around (perhaps too any) but then again, this covers a larger outbreak. There are heroes here in the everyday people and that's what makes this special. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An excellent informative read that might make you shudder.

Just as terrifying as The Hot Zone was in the 90s, but Crisis in the Red Zone is also more emotional. Very sad stories about so much loss that could have been prevented. Not in the least that of Dr. Khan, I nearly broke down crying while reading even though I knew the outcome.

This book reads like great fiction but sadly is non-fiction. Please don't forget that while reading. This is real. It is happening right now.

Just this week it was reported that a priest was traveling from a small village to Goma with known symptoms of ebola. When he arrived in Goma he was turned away saying his village of origin was better equipped to deal with ebola. So he was turned away and sent back... and died in transit. This was public transit. So even today people eschew the rules and recommendations given for what to do if you have ebola symptoms and now this priest has gone from a small village to a city with over 1 million inhabitants that has an international airport. Great.

This book made me absolutely disgusted wtih MSF/Doctors Without Borders. Terrible what they did to Dr. Khan. Their setups seem to be doing more harm than good, squalid conditions etc. The WHO tried to knock some sense into them and just got bureaucratic nonsense in return. Absolutely ridiculous.

If you are reading this prepare to be disgusted, terrified, amazed, and ultimately so angry with the MSF/Doctors Without Borders crew. Why didn't they send more help to Kenema? The doctors and nurses could have been saved. Dr. Khan was a hero that went down with his flock but it could have been prevented. My heart goes out to his family.

Years ago I read The Hot Zone, also by Richard Preston. He has a way of crafting nonfiction books that helps the person reading it experience the things that have happened as if they were during the actual events.

While the news reports, during the time of the 2014 Ebola outbreaks, gave us a glimmer of how bad things were, Richard takes us to the areas that were so badly hit and through his book, we get to know the people involved. I was especially impressed by how hard the people on the front lines worked to find and isolate those who had Ebola, so they could stop this from becoming an even bigger problem. Even though family members, who didn’t understand why their loved ones were taken away, at times tried to save their family members from strangers, often caused more problems and tried to fight out those who were only trying to help.

This is a very important book. Things like this could happen again, and the information here should be shared. I feel this is worth 5 stars.

This book was great. Informative about what Ebola is and how it spread. It was interesting to see all of the transferring of the virus.
My only thing was that it was a long book. It took a while to finish the book. It almost could have been two books. But other than that, it was a great book!

Having just recently read Richard Preston's hit book The Hot Zone, I was excited to see that he was releasing a follow up dealing with the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2013-2014. I loved The Hot Zone and had even watched the National Geographic miniseries based upon the book. However, I must say I was deeply disappointed in Preston's newest Ebola story.



Crisis in the Red Zone tells the story of the recent spread of Ebola through Africa, particularly in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Starting with the death of a small child, the Ebola virus quickly devastates many small villages and kills hundreds of people. As health officials worldwide become aware of the situation, doctors and scientists are sent in to try and contain the disease before it becomes a global pandemic. Scientists also try to discover the origin of the virus and realize that once it enters humans, the virus spread and mutates at an extraordinary level. Preston delves into the lives of those on the ground in the hot zones, from the doctors and nurses watching as patients suffer horrible deaths, to scientists in labs in the US, searching for answers. Some of these people do not survive the outbreak, and all are changed forever by the horrors they witness in the red zone.



One thing I liked about Preston's book The Hot Zone was his ability to make us care about the people in the two main storylines of that book (the doctors in Zaire and the Jaxxs in Maryland). Again, in this book, Preston gets us to care about the people involved in this crisis; however, there are TOO many people to have to keep up with and care about in this book. He follows many characters, flipping back and forth between their stories from one paragraph to the next, and it makes it very difficult to remember who is who and to keep up with a streamlined narrative for each character. I feel this book would have been much clearer had it followed only a few characters that we can easily track through the entire book rather than quickly bouncing from one character to the next to the next. Preston also goes into significant detail about almost every topic in this book. While I appreciate the detailing of the virus and how it is composed, how it works and how it spreads, not everything that is discussed needs an extended explanation. I feel he gets bogged down in the details, repeating himself numerous times about unimportant facts, and forgets to get back to the main idea; I found myself becoming very bored as I read this book. For a story that is so horrifying and real, the way in which it is presented is meandering, slow-paced, and exhausting.



This book is a scary read, like Preston's other works, and the fact that this story is a true story makes it all the more terrifying. I appreciate Preston bringing this story to light; I just wish it had been done in a more cohesive and thrilling manner.



My thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing this ARC of Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston.



Rating: ⭐⭐

forensic-medicine, true-horror, viral-disease, Africa, contagion

Worse than Yellow Fever, Typhoid, or Malaria but mimicking both for a time, the scourge of Ebola was first seen in a village in Zambia in 1976. It certainly didn't stop there but went on a killing spree that spread and defied the medical field and investigators.
Written in a style that translates Medicalese into a language that anyone can understand and occasionally using very short sentences to emphasize the unthinkable, this is not just a history, but a warning. The scope of Ebola is somewhat diminished today, but who knows what other virus could mutate into the next horror.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley.

Title:

Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
Author: Richard Preston

Pages: 400

Genre: Science

Pub date: July 23,2019

The 2103-2014 was the deadliest ever--but the outbreaks continue. Now comes a gripping account of the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us, an urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses--from the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone, soon to be a National Geographic original miniseries.

This time, Ebola started with a two-year-old child who likely had contact with a wild creature and whose entire family quickly fell ill and died. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire. By the end--as the virus mutated into its deadliest form, and spread farther and faster than ever before--30,000 people would be infected, and the dead would be spread across eight countries on three continents.

In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston deeply chronicles the outbreak, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. Rich in characters and conflict--physical, emotional, and ethical--Crisis in the Red Zoneis an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time.

Preston writes of doctors and nurses in the field putting their own lives on the line, of government bureaucrats and NGO administrators moving, often fitfully, to try to contain the outbreak, and of pharmaceutical companies racing to develop drugs to combat the virus. He also explores the charged ethical dilemma over who should and did receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment when they became available at the peak of the disaster.

Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013-2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined--in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before.

The more we discover about the virosphere, the more we realize its deadly potential. Crisis in the Red Zone is an exquisitely timely book, a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come.


My thoughts

Rating: 5

Would I recommended it? yes

Will I read anything else by this author? yes

This is the first time I've ever read anything about the Ebola virus and I'm glad that I decide to pick this up, First off the author brings to live and gives an in dept look of the Ebola virus and how it affects the body and how its passed from one person to the next , he goes also in dept of how the doctors and nurses puts their very live at risk to help fight this virus and the steps they and they government as well as the NGO take as well, he brings to life not only the virus but the people who fight and died from it , as well as how the families of the deceased and how the villagers treated their lost ones and goes into explaining how the virus was past though out the families as well as the villagers. He also tells you about the six different types of Ebola .Yes you read right there are six different types .And those

6 known species of Ebola is : Zaire Ebola, Sudan Ebola, Reston Ebola, Tai Forest Ebola, Bundibugyo Ebola and Bombali Ebola, their know as the six Ebola sisters,and that
Out of the 6 ,the most lethal is the Zaire or is the homicidal elder sister. not only is it the most deadly of the five Ebolas but it is also the most deadly of all known filoviruses, that includes the Ebolas. It's the Lord of the strains.

After reading this book I can understand a little bit better why we need to study these types of virus and how to fight them , but it also scare to think what would happening if they ever got lose of here , or someone using them as a weapon but over all its still a good book to read with that said I want to thank Netgalley for letting me read and review it .

Only an author like Richard Preston can describe technical jargon, nightmarish international juggling and one of the most deadly viruses known to man into a thoroughly readable book, one that should be required reading. I first read Preston’s writing in The Hot Zone, which was a terrifying read in its own right, but was very understandable. Both books show the human and legal side of epidemiology, while to a virus, we are merely a transport system. Crisis is a very sobering look at the unseen war that goes on and the terrible prices that are paid on our behalf.

Richard Preston’s book The Hot Zone is what made me want to study microbiology and pathogens - it truly changed the course of my life. This novel is a continuation of the Ebola saga, covering the recent outbreaks in Guinea and Sierra Leone. I remember the hysteria that happened when it was confirmed cases had been found on US soil, but I wasn’t aware at the time how truly devastating and large the outbreak had become. I did find parts of this repetitive because it rehashed material previously covered in The Hot Zone, but the subject matter was still fascinating. I was especially outraged by the political machinations between the WHO, CDC, NIH and other organizations fighting over experimental treatments that could have saved lives. There is another Ebola outbreak currently happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo that shows no signs of stopping, and this book truly drives home how dangerously close we are to a global outbreak of mass proportions. It’s a matter of when, not if, in today’s connected world but unfortunately most citizens don’t seem to know or care.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. It was like I was right there with the doctors, nurses, and researchers of Ebola. I loved the authors style of writing and his descriptions of the people and places.
I was fascinated on how the Ebola virus had mutated from one boy to the three nurses. Also the brief description of the antibodies in the vaccine was brief and simple enough for me, a layperson to understand.
This book should be required reading for anyone going into public health or who wants to know more about Level 4 or HOT viruses.
Spoiler alert:
I cried like a baby when Dr Khan and Nurse Auntie died.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of Crisis in the Red Zone. As a health professional and graduate public health student concentrating in infectious diseases, I was particularly interested in this book as the subject is right up my alley. Having previously read about and researched the 2013-14 West Africa Ebola outbreak, I thought I knew a lot about what had happened. Turns out I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

Preston masterfully delves into the details and characters of the tragic events of the first appearance of Ebola in Yambuku in 1976, and then in 2013 starting in Guinea. I learned much more about the backstory (e.g. development of ZMapp and other experimental drugs) and people (I discovered I personally know someone mentioned in the book), which proved very satisfying. There were a few typos and a couple of points in the text where I felt the language was overly dramatic, but overall, I think it's difficult NOT to tell a story in this manner when a deadly virus and life-0r-death situations are involved. It was a gripping account and admittedly, I went through a gamut of emotions as I progressed through the book. I felt immense sadness when reading about the sacrifices made by the workers at Kenema hospital, and -- as a nurse -- anger when simple life-saving measures were withheld (details in the book, though I'm not convinced the reasons made by individuals/organizations were justified). I can't imagine the ethical conflicts that some of the characters faced when confronted with issues of deciding who was to receive treatment. It's a fascinating narrative that highlights differences in cultural beliefs and practices, Western and tribal folk medicine, and how the two often clashed.

The fact that these events happened only 5 years ago and currently another outbreak rages in the DRC and has spread into Uganda illustrates how utterly real, terrifying, and devastating the threat of disease-causing microbes is. It can't be understated how important it is, as citizens and nations, to stay vigilant and prepared for "war" against lethal pathogens.

Compelling and informative read that is fast paced but covers subject matter in a concise manner.
Thanks for letting me review this book

Robert Preston did it again! He took a true story of disease along with those who fight it and turned it into a compelling narrative.
This nonfiction science work starts out with a history of Ebola and those who were first made ill by the outbreak in 2014. He introduces the main players in starting the fight against the epidemic by giving insights into their lives and their motivations. Then, through flashbacks, he brings in the earliest discoveries of Ebola and the beginnings of research into cures and prevention. The book leaves off in mid-2016 with the virus coming to the US and a look at how the country has and has not prepared. The people who you meet in the story age not perfect, they are real. They have histories and different things which motivate them. You will find yourself holding your breath and exclaiming alternately with dismay and with joy as the story progresses.
If you enjoyed Hot Zone, Demon in the Freezer, or Preston's fiction work, you will love this book as well. If you are wanting to understand how a crisis develops or how it could be averted, you will love this book. Frankly, if you love a good story and can handle the realization that it is REAL, you will love this book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The first book I read by Richard Preston was The Hot Zone which is now a Mini Series. You can't watch the new without hears Ebola. When you realize that deadly Ebola outbreak are mainly found in African nations it doesn't make it any less terrifying.

While Richard Preston has an ability to write an amazing story using the news, medical and first hand accounts he does not sugar coat the details in which they have watched people die from Ebola. At times the stories and accounts will turn stomachs knowing how easily this disease could be transmitted across the oceans. Away from the 3rd world nations and right to your own back door.

The author gives stats, detailed accounts in hopes readers will open their eyes to the delicate balance we have in the world. This is must read book for those interested in Ebola or infectious diseases.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Random House, for the Advance copy of Richard Preston Crisis in the Red Zone.

Growing up and even now, people will sometimes ask, "What's your dream job?" And without any hesitation, my answer is always, "to work at the CDC in Level 4 as an epidemiologist." My whole life, I've been fascinated with diseases, particularly blood-borne ones that are right up there as Level 4. I loved The Hot Zone, and really any literature regarding Ebola. The scare the US had in 2014, in many people's eyes, was a wake up call to the way this virus works.

And Crisis in the Red Zone dives deep into what happened. Who was hit, when, where and how. It's a detailed navigation of what went wrong with the new Ebola virus in Africa. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in diseases. Or if you're interested in real life, very dangerous and serious situations. This book almost reads like a true crime novel. I had a hard time putting it down.

Pick it up, and you'll know exactly what I mean.

Enjoy!

Preston's newest work will not disappoint readers familiar with The Hot Zone. For a non-fiction book, I found a very nice development of characters, their background, their motivations, and their dedication. Crisis in the Red Zone is well-written, giving necessary background, without drowning the reader in tedious details.

I found the science and medical professional's courage to be greatly appreciated. Some of them directly placed their lives in danger, not just from a deadly disease, but also in their willingness to voluntarily place themselves in contact with violent and deadly tribal members. And they did this repeatedly. Not to take away from general medical care in a local "first-world" clinic, but the individuals brought out in Preston's book are simply incredible human beings.

I heartily recommend this book to all fans of Preston's earlier books, of course, but to those who appreciate criminal procedures and medical thrillers. And it's non-fiction. It's not based on a true story; it *is* the true story.