The critics unanimously agree that brilliant, award-winning reporter and bestselling author Steven Brill has written a powerful and sweeping narrative of the country in the first year of the September 12 era. As the pages flutter – marvels one critic – in a race to learn the rest of the story we thought we knew so well, Brill takes us from the White House Situation Room to the living rooms of victims’ families, from courtrooms to boardrooms, from border crossings to airport tarmacs.

We watch as a Customs inspector struggles to protect New York harbor from a dirty bomb; a storekeeper at Ground Zero rebuilds his shoe repair shop; a Silicon Valley entrepreneur lobbies to get his baggage screening systems into every airport; Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge battles the bureaucratic minefields of Washington; a New Jersey widow struggles to help her three children cope with the loss of their father; and John Ashcroft seizes the moment to become the most powerful and controversial attorney general in a generation, while the head of the ACLU tries to block him.

The result is a gritty narrative – and trailblazing journalism – that inspires us all as it tells the real story of how Americans moved to defend and rebuild their lives and their country.