TOW #14: The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Richard Preston is the author of The Hot Zone and numerous other works about
bioterrorism and infectious diseases.

Published in 1994, The Hot Zone tells the terrifying true stories of viral hemorrhagic fevers, a group of deadly diseases that includes the infamous Ebola virus.  The book focuses on the discovery of the Reston virus, related to Ebola, that popped up in a monkey holding facility in Reston, Virginia, not far from Washington, DC.  Since the Reston virus killed nearly all the monkeys it affected, the prospect of it crossing into the human population scared researchers and medical experts out of their wits.  The process of identifying the disease and decontaminating the holding facility takes up about half the book, which is told through the perspective of any one of those at the site of the Reston outbreak or of Preston himself.
The Hot Zone is mostly made up of testimony from people who are experts on viral hemorrhagic fevers or where at the Reston holding facility, so a lot of the book does not have a very 'personal touch'.  However, the book's last section is entirely about the author's own experiences visiting two places central to The Hot Zone. The first is Kitum Cave in Kenya, where two people fatally contracted the Marburg virus in the 1980's.  Their experiences were crucial to the beginning of the work, as the research done on their cases set the stage for later exploration into similar diseases.  When Preston writes about his own visit, it is somewhat of an appeal to ethos, as it makes it seem like he understands the topic better; nothing is better than first-hand experience.
The second place Preston visits is the monkey holding facility where the Reston virus had broken out, but this involves a different rhetorical device.  Long abandoned, vines had grown up the sides of the building, which was inhabited only by spiders and other insects.  Preston writes at the very end of the book, "Life had established itself inside the monkey house.  Ebola had risen in these rooms, flashed its color, fed, and subsided into the forest.  It will be back" (Preston 411).  By the end of the book, readers know that the Ebola virus is deadly to humans and that the Reston virus would be equally devastating.  By wrapping up with a phrase as ominous as "It will be back", Preston ensures that readers will think about his book for a long time and even be haunted by it; I can attest to this idea, as I certainly thought about The Hot Zone for a long time after finishing it.