Transmutation by Cole

Extract

When I agreed to review L. Cole's book Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas (PLS, February 1989), I did so because the subject is interesting and important. I did not know Cole, nor had I read any of his previous work. To the editor of the PLS and, implicitly, to its readers, I committed to appraise the book as fairly as I could. As anyone whose working life is spent writing knows, much work goes into producing a book. I regard criticizing a book as a serious responsibility, because I know the labor that the author has gone through before the first copy is printed.