“They are medicine’s rapid-reaction force, an elite cadre of highly trained disease detectives who are poised to go anywhere on a few hours’ notice to investigate a threat to public health. As science journalist Maryn McKenna makes clear in Beating Back the Devil — her deeply researched portrait of the class of 2002 of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — their work is by turns terrifying, exhilarating, gritty and exhausting. … A revealing glimpse into the little-known world of deeply committed investigators who trade two years of their lives to be on the front lines of public health.”
