Hot Zone

Richard Preston

Oct 1994 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Howard McGillin

About this audiobook

The virus kills nine out of ten of its victims. Its effects are so quick and so gruesome that even biohazard experts are terrified. It is airborne, it is extremely contagious, and it is about to burn through the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Is there any way to stop it?

This doomsday scenario confronted a biohazard SWAT team struggling in secret to stop the outbreak of an exotic "hot" virus at an Army research facility outside Washington. The Hot Zone tells the dramatic story of their dangerous race against time, along with an alarming account of how previously unknown viruses that have lived undetected in the rain forest for eons are now entering human populations.

From the airlocked confines of a biosafety level 4 military lab, to an airliner over Kenya carrying a passenger dissolving into a human virus bomb, to a deserted jungle cave alive with deadly virus, THE HOT ZONE is a non-fiction thriller like no other. The Andromeda Strain was fiction---this is real!

About the author

Richard Preston has written nine books, including The Hot Zone, The Demon in the Freezer, and The Wild Trees. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and most of them have first appeared as articles in The New Yorker. Preston has won numerous awards, including the American Institute of Physics Award and the National Magazine Award. He’s also the only person not a medical doctor ever to receive the Centers for Disease Control’s Champion of Prevention Award for public health. An asteroid is named “Preston” after him. (Asteroid Preston is a ball of rock three miles in diameter, traveling on a wild orbit near Mars.) Richard Preston lives outside New York City with his wife, Michelle. They have three children.