This is a personal story in which Devra Davis reflects about the killer smog in her home town of Denora Pennsylvania during the last week of October of 1948. In just three days this smog would change the lives of everyone who lived there, especially those who survived the aftermath.

Which included the 40 years of researching and talking to people to find out what happen on that tragic day and why the cover up. However, what really made this story interesting is that Devra Davis compared this tragedy with the Holocaust because she mentioned that the Holocaust was an unmentionable tragedy. Meaning people who were part of these tragic events never talked about it, unless they were asked or got push into talking about it. Although the made a memorial of those who died that initial time line 50 years after it happen, those who died later on because of that even were never memorialize because it.

Naturally as the book went on she used such events of London fires, killer smog of 1930 in Liege Belgium and again in London in 1952, Jack the Ripper’s five murders and of course the early 19th century when the Industrial Revolution would begin in England. With these specific events we would begin to see the cover up government officials were trying to do start when air pollution was becoming a problem and she used these events as background for the serious problem as she began delving into diseases and of course the opposite view towards the end of the book. This was a very interesting reading that provides a very historical perspective on pollution that can be traced as far back as the dark ages, when coal was replacing wood as a source of fire and the world’s population begins to grow. This is a good book to read since it gives an historical perspective of people working on trying to clean the environment.