Customer Reviews

Amerithrax: The Hunt for the Anthrax Killer

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist for a San Francisco newspaper, wrote other books ("Zodiac", "Zodiac Unmasked") about a true crime of the late 1960s. This 2003 book of 500 pages has loads of details about the unsolved terrorist poisoning. The `Prologue' notes that the destruction of the World Trade Center twin towers was caused by their deficient design and construction. The collapse of one weakened floor led to a chain reaction that destroyed the buildings. There was no attempt to destroy traditional high-rise buildings whose steel frames were encased in concrete. The `Empire State Building' survived an accidental crash of a medium bomber in 1945. The collapsed towers spewed toxic dust throughout lower Manhattan, the financial capital of America.

On September 2001 letters containing anthrax spores were received at a weekly tabloid publishing company in Boca Raton. People were sickened, one died. Inhalational anthrax was discovered in the 19th century industrial factories that processed textiles and leather from animal products. Gardeners who used contaminated bone meal fertilizers were infected. More letters were mailed to New York and Washington. Some postal workers developed rashes and lesions from handling the mail. The Army began a biological weapons program in 1942 (Chapter 7). Chemical weapons were prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention was adopted, but some countries kept supplies for retaliation. [The murder of Dr. Parkman by Dr. Webster was caused by a loan that was overdue (p.97).] Letters to US Senators contaminated the Washington postal facilities (Chapter 8). Washington postal workers were infected and some died (Chapter 10).

Chapter 13 tells of the Army's 1966 test that spread bacteria in the New York City subway system. Chapter 14 is about the Soviet germ warfare laboratory in Sverdlovsk. In 1979 an accident (a missing filter) spread anthrax spores into the air. Over a hundred people died, mostly middle-aged men who were outside at night. Chapter 16 has a good story on postal inspectors. [As I remember it, the `Mad Bomber' was caught after NY police searched Con Ed's old correspondence files until they found matching handwriting samples.] The `profile' is discussed in Chapter 17. A human breath can leave DNA on a sheet of paper (p.255). Poison pen letters can create much trouble to innocent people. Sometimes they are written by strangers (p.256). Domestic terrorists have poisoned people (p.264). Anthrax is a recurrent disease to grass-eating animals, but a vaccine prevents the disease.

Chapter 23 tells how the US Army secretly tested biological weapons on American citizens. [Who ordered this?] The contaminated buildings were sanitized (Chapter 24). The anthrax in the letters could only have come from the US bioweapons program (p.292)! Security was poor at Government labs (p.294). One scientist said the anthrax used was beyond the capabilities of a lone individual (p.302). Genomics is a tool for the forensic analysis of microbes (Chapter 26). Identifying the strain might deter future attacks (p.314). Did the Government fail to safeguard postal workers (p.319)? Did many leave the military because of the anthrax vaccine (p.323)? Was a person harassed to get him fired (p.328)? Was "the Concern" an example of waste that led to bankruptcy (Chapter 28)? Page 355 reveals how people are harassed. Can people be assassinated by bacteria (p.362)? Or destroy herds of cattle (p.363)? The Jewell incident shows the fallibility of the corporate press (p.377). Was the blame of Hatfill designed to hide the lack of a solution (p.398)? Character assassination (p.413)? Does the press have any shame or honesty (pp.414-415)? More nasty work on pages 416-418. Chapter 37 finished the book. Who done it?"We will likely never know" (p.439). Was the attack aimed against the two US Senators opposed to the "Patriot Act" (p.442)? The `Epilogue' asks if Hatfill will ever get his day in court (p.447). [Will the blame be laid on a dead man?]

Although an intersesting account of the investigation of the anthrax mailings in 2001, this book is poorly written and hard to follow. I often got the impression that the author was quoting sources that he doesn't understand which made for a confusing and dissapointing read.

Why do I keep wasting my money on books written by this author? I should have learned my lesson after buying his awful "The Bell Tower" (Jack the Ripper) and his even worse "Zodiac Unmasked" (Zodiac killer).

Well, after reading "Amerithrax" with all of its factual inaccuracies and research blunders, Graysmith's writing career will have to be funded by someone else.

Graysmith correctly concludes that the Jennifer Lopez letter which was opened at AMI on September 19 2001 is the "Holy Grail" of the entire case. The AMI staff members remember that this letter contained a powder and that Bob Stevens, the first victim, held it up closely to his face. The official conclusion of the CDC was that Bob Stevens was infected with the disease from that letter.
However, Graysmith does not offer any explanation or commentary as to why the the perpetrator of the world's first anthrax bioweapons terrorist attack would choose to use the subject of Jennifer Lopez in delivering the bioweapon.
Jennifer Lopez is popularly called "Jenny" in Europe - especially in Germany. I don't know if Graysmith was aware of this when he wrote his book - but Mohammed Atta, who was living nearby the AMI building in the weeks leading up to the 9/11 attacks was communicating with a terrorist contact in Germany at the same time. As code for these messages, in which he revealed the date of the planned 9/11 attacks - he pretened to be writing to an imaginary girlfriend - her name was "Jenny". See anthrax2001.blogspot for more details.

This book is a useful part of an ongoing national dialogue of great importance.

The failure of the FBI to solve the anthrax case is a disgrace. Dr. Bruce Ivins is clearly not the sole perpetrator and he was probably not involved at all. In my view, the FBI knows who the mass murderers are but is covering up the truth.

I wrote a short novel Case Closed in which I present one scenario to explain why the FBI is acting as they are. Is my novel true? Of course not ... it's a novel! But readers agree it raises questions that very much need to be answered.

I also manage a blog at "caseclosedbylewweinstein" that has a vibrant daily interchange on the anthrax case and the FBI's failures. Maybe some day we'll know the truth.