Product Description
National bestselling true-crime author Robert Graysmith lends his investigative insight to the definitive case study of America's invisible terrorist.

Based in part on information from the FBI's Amerithrax task force, as well as the author's independent research, and with official photos and transcripts of the anthrax letters, this is the most comprehensive work to date about the plague of terror that arose in the wake of 9/11/01--and the relentless scientific manhunt to stop it.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 8 reviews)

Good but too long

Not living in America, I knew relatively little about the Anthrax killer, so the story was new to me.

Its strengths are the detailed review of the facts of the case, and the telling of the general history of biological warfare since WW2. It also tells us about the unfortunate victims and their terrible suffering.

The trouble is, it tries to weave too many different things into a single narrative, which gets confusing. There is a lot of back tracking, and the story is interrupted constantly by anecdotes about Soviet, American, and Iraqi anthrax factories, previous anthrax leaks, the Una bomber, and various other mail-crimes, some of which are repetitive and not terribly relevant.

I did like the book tho, it sent a chill up my spine more than once. Consider the fact that several countries now stock enough anthrax bombs to kill every person on earth! Terrifying when you think about it.
August 01, 2008

fascinating read

this was a fairly quick read. as we all know the plot, the writer offers many details unknown and some interesting analyses. i felt carried along for hundreds of pages, only to be dropped in the end without resolution - of course, our finest investigative services have publicly never reached a conclusion either. reading this book is a lot like listening to someone describe a web. there's no simple way to describe one with its concentric lines of slightly different thicknesses and angles. same with this book, the facts from different sites and the progress (or lack thereof) at each site make for a quite difficult story to tell. this was far from one of the best books that i've read in the past 12 months, but it is a topic in which i am puzzled. it is a worthwhile read, if you can tolerate the above limitations, new or used.
March 18, 2008

All Over the Map

(This is a review of the Kindle edition.)

The author has unquestionably done a lot of work on researching the history and personalities involved in the anthrax killings. The problem I had with this book was how unevenly it plays out. It jumps from a fairly good narrative true crime story to a poorly written overly detailed look at topics that are barely relevant to the story. Most irritating were the numerous repetitions of facts and quotes, as if the author were being paid by the word or presumed that the reader could not retain simple facts from one chapter to the next. The narrative is choppy and jumps back and forth across time more than is really necessary.

I bought it as a reader with an interest in human response in disasters, not as a professional researcher. It may be useful to keep as a reference to refresh my memory on facts, but it is not what I would consider an enjoyable and informative narrative in the genre of true crime.

January 22, 2008

National Preparedness BioDefense

I work in biological counter-terrorism and I found this book to be extremely helpful to better my understanding of the mail based attacks that took place in September and October of 2001.
Interestingly , I discovered that my company's product the Mail Defender was mentioned on page 411 of the hard copy.
One point the book makes is that is extremely difficult if not impossible to unmask the predator, while the United States mail system still remains the most open and largest distribution system in the world.
Please feel free to contact me anytime by email to discuss.
October 09, 2007

Needs editing or a screenwriter

I was attracted to this book because I enjoyed the movie "Zodiac", (which was written by screenwriter James Vanderbilt) and I thought the Robert Graysmith criminal element may prove interesting.

Sadly Graysmith had few cohesive thoughts in the book. It bounces around far too much from the death of Bob Stevens, to Mohammed Atta, NBC, Homeland Security, the CDC and back to AMI among others. The aforementioned are all critical to the story. When there is a gap in time and with such a detailed story it would have been better had it been tighter.

Graysmith has not turned out to be my favorite author. But, when it comes to movies based on his original writing, such as "Zodiac" or commentary he provides on the Autofocus DVD discussing the investigation into the murder of Bob Crane, I have become a fan.
June 19, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story
by Leonard A. Cole

Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak
by Jeanne Guillemin

Unabomber: A Desire to Kill
by Robert Graysmith

The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed
by Marilyn W. Thompson

Auto Focus: The Murder of Bob Crane
by Robert Graysmith