The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War

Willman, a Pulitzer Prize%E2%80%93winning journalist, offers a nuanced account of the bungled FBI investigation into the "anthrax attacks" as the Bush administration strove to use the public panic to strengthen their case to go to war, while the culprit was, in all likelihood, a military microbiologist named Bruce Ivins. Willman traces Ivins's unhappy life, how he endured childhood abuse and privation to become a successful scientist only to find his life unraveling as a result of his bizarre obsessions and fixations with women%E2%80%94from co-workers to a reality TV star and members of a local campus sorority. Willman pivots to focus on the flawed investigation%E2%80%94how the FBI targeted terrorist groups and, later, the wrong scientist, Steven Hatfill%E2%80%94and how, perversely, Ivins benefited both financially and professionally from the public paranoia about anthrax as his research into an anthrax vaccine became a national priority. Willman makes the case against Ivins%E2%80%94and against the political uses of the case%E2%80%94with admirable fair-mindedness and narrative flair. (July)