The Cobra Event

“One of those books you literally can’t put down . . . makes The Hot Zone virus—far away in a rainforest—look like no big deal.”—Detroit Free Press

Five days ago, a homeless man on a subway platform died in agony as startled commuters looked on. Yesterday, a teenager started having violent, uncontrollable spasms in art class. Within minutes, she too was dead.

Dr. Alice Austen is a medical pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What she knows is that the two deaths are conn...