Last Man Down

The bravery of the New York firefighters on September 11 2001 was an inspiration to the world. In this book, the highest-ranking firefighter to survive the collapse of the World Trade Centre tells his story with the help of an adept but modest professional writer, Daniel Paisner. Summoned to the tower when the first plane hit, Battalion Commander Picciotto assisted in the evacuation of those below the affected floors, and was in the process of leaving the South Tower when it collapsed, trapping him and a few of his men in a pocket of air below the enormous mass of wreckage. Cut off from the outside world, their situation was precarious to say the least, their climb to eventual safety fraught with difficulties. The personal story is affecting enough: the hasty prayer for a quick death rather than slow immolation, the slow slide down a collapsing staircase - 'like a slow free fall, where you never fully leave the ground because the ground is free falling with you'. But it is in the end secondary to the horror and splendour of the occasion - the horror of the falling bodies of those throwing themselves from the upper floors, the disabled occupants of the building struggling down the stairs, floor after floor - but the splendour of the astonishing bravery of both victims and rescuers. Then there are the moments of extraordinary black farce: the man clinging to his computer, attempting to send messages to his stockbroker down a severed line, with the building aflame and collapsing around him. As a record of a defining moment of history this is but a first and personal sketch, but it has the merits of immediacy and first-hand observation, and from start to finish is deeply impressive. (Kirkus UK)