Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Bombing, April 19, 1995: Final Report

I bought this book in error, thinking it was the same as the 556-page Final Report based on the work of the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, and funded by private citizens. But this volume was written by city rescue officials in Oklahoma City. It focuses on the heroic rescue operations conducted afterward, in minute detail. To its credit, the book gives a huge amount of information about effects of the explosion, the number of people trapped inside, the number of people rescued, by what time and date, the locations and numbers of rescuers, and so on. This will be useful and interesting to anyone honoring those who risked their lives to save others. This book is valuable in its own right. It honors the dead, and those who worked to save the living. It's certainly a good companion to Key's Final Report. It's also useful for readers interested in coordinating data available on the attack. But it doesn't examine questions about perpetrators, motives, and investigations concerning the attacks, all of which still need a lot more answers. --Alyssa A. Lappen