As brilliant as Quammen is at describing the workings of viruses, he's also a masterful portrait painter, a close observer of people. The real heroes of the piece are the detectives – the scientists working tirelessly out in the field and in their labs to solve the crimes committed by those microscopic murderers. In the process we learn the myriad ways in which a germ can move from one host to another – through excrement, excretions, mucus and blood – and uncover the dangerous activities that may have led to exposure: climbing trees? touching or eating dead animals? drinking date-palm sap? Quammen also hunts down the unwitting accomplices: the animals who carry these diseases before they jump into humans: pigs, birds, monkeys, apes and bats.
The history of the investigation unfolds until we come face to face with the killer. In each chapter a disease gradually comes into focus, starting with rumours, a few seemingly unconnected, mysterious deaths. There's no "here's the science bit" lessons in virology, epidemiology and genetics are woven seamlessly into the story. But this is such a consummate piece of science writing that you're likely to imbibe some extremely complex concepts without realising it. He promises to tell us the "complicated story", not the dramatic one. He's much more interested in demystifying these outbreaks, finding out what we know about them and how this might help us to anticipate future emergent diseases and limit their impact. Quammen doesn't sensationalise his material (you could argue he doesn't need to – it's quite dreadful enough). The story is grim enough without the usually exaggerated descriptions of Ebola: sufferers crying blood and melting from the inside out. An international team of detectives works on the cases, and Quammen follows them as they uncover the traces which will lead them to the killers.Īfter an opening chapter about a horrific virus which lays low horses and humans, the Ebola virus emerges through a dark tale, with piles of dead gorillas in the forest, consumption of rotting bushmeat, sorcery and Rosicrucianism.
Each chapter follows the quest to track down a new villain. They are viruses, bacteria and single-celled organisms which infect other animals, but every now and then make the jump – spill over – to our own species. David Quammen has woven a story of incredible complexity a detective story with a difference, with a host of murderers – all of them real.
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