Compelling and terrifying.

Mr. Quammen, a prolific science journalist and author, uncovers all sorts of details about the efforts to investigate the spread of Covid and discern the features that made it so menacing. Breathless is not a political book and touches only briefly on the failures of institutions and leaders to mount an adequate response to the pandemic. Instead, it is an engagingly written chronicle of scientific inquiry. Along the way, Mr. Quammen introduces us to important researchers who, until now, have been largely unknown.

Sweeping, deeply reported.

Quammen takes readers step by step through the genetic and epidemiological data.

Few writers are able to understand the strings of amino acids that give these viruses their distinctive codes, let alone relate them to other Sars-like viruses. And even fewer possess the literary gifts necessary to make the genomics comprehensible to lay readers. Fortunately, David Quammen, whose previous works include books on Ebola and other viruses that periodically infect humans, is one of them.

A sort of biography of the virus and a masterful scientific detective story.

Quammen recounts in page-turning detail the scientific response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Authoritative.