No one's coming The rogue heroes our government turns to when there's nowhere else to turn

Could an airplane evacuate two American medical professionals with Ebola from West Africa without infecting the crew? That's the dire question at the heart of this gripping real-life thriller from journalist and former paramedic Hazzard (American Sirens). The saga beings with an unexpected 2014 phone call from the State Department to Phoenix Air's COO, inquiring if the company's untested biocontainment tent could be used to fly a critically ill doctor, Kent Brantly, and a volunteer, Nancy Writebol, from the "epicenter of the deadliest Ebola outbreak in human history." Despite the "huge, almost incalculable" risk, Phoenix Air, which first made its name flying explosives, including Muammar Gadhafi's "suitcase nuke," fulfilled its reputation of "saying yes when everybody else said no." The author documents the astonishing week-and-a-half mission with tense velocity, as Phoenix Air rapidly develops and tests a protocol to prevent "the scariest death imaginable" using mostly PPE from Home Depot. Numerous roadblocks occur during the two rescue flights themselves, from the plane's cabin not pressurizing to airports turning the jets away. Hazzard also spotlights the heroism of the doctors and volunteers in Liberia who found themselves caring for their own colleagues and the Emory University hospital staff who received the patients, juxtaposing this selfless determination to "save the saviors" with the concurrent "media shitstorm" that led to public hysteria and protests outside Emory. It's an absolute nail-biter. (Mar.)

Defying death during an epidemic. In this inspiring, cinematic book, a daring American aviation firm rescues seriously ill medical workers in West Africa. The author, a former paramedic, is well matched with the subject. He skillfully builds dramatic tension, though a handful of scenes read like extracts from a punched-up screenplay. In 2014, Phoenix Air, a Georgia-based outfit that hauls unusually sensitive cargo--"dynamite, warheads, smallpox"--was tasked with getting Ebola-infected American medical professionals back home from Liberia. As Hazzard relates in a very specific rundown of the symptoms, the disease is excruciating and highly communicable. We see handy Phoenix staffers outfit a jet with a bespoke biocontainment unit and secure approval from "a dozen federal agencies." We witness the mission's impact on those involved; online dating is tricky when your name is linked with a disease that leaves patients "gushing" bodily fluids. Hazzard makes policy debates interesting. Traditionally, American doctors sickened abroad were treated where they fell ill. But "treat-in-place" wasn't popular with physicians, inspiring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with Phoenix. Less compellingly, Hazzard picks low-hanging fruit--jingoistic tweets and apocalyptic posts in newspaper comments sections--to demonstrate that the "audacious plan" to effectively "import Ebola" was controversial. The author describes one of the book's main sources, a Phoenix executive he met several years after the Ebola flights, as "a world-class salesman" and "a P.T. Barnum for our age." So it's not surprising that some of the proceedings have an oft-told, just-so quality. In Hollywood-ready scenes, real-life characters are ultracool, with pithy quotes at the ready, when facing extraordinarily daunting challenges and panicky government functionaries. These overly polished anecdotes don't help a generally solid record of real-life heroism. A stirring account of the dauntless ingenuity that saved lives during an infectious disease outbreak. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.