Review: ‘Zika’ Tracks the Trajectory of an Epidemic

If a publisher had come to me four months ago and asked me to write a book about the Zika crisis in just 30 days, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to say yes, as Donald G. McNeil Jr. did. So many assumptions written in March or April could prove wrong by June or August that the challenge of quickly producing a book on Zika would seem too risky — given that there will also be sleep deprivation, speed writing, high-velocity editing and rewrite ahead.

And so it is with considerable amazement that I find much to applaud in Mr. McNeil’s “Zika: The Emerging Epidemic.” Though slim, with just 174 pages of text and an 11-page question-and-answer section, “Zika” is dense with information. How Mr. McNeil, a science and health reporter for The New York Times, managed to accomplish this so fast I cannot fathom.