She was deeply affected by the Hillsborough disaster while at school and spent her summer holidays on work experience assignments with her uncle and aunt, both coroners in northern towns. It is through the cracks, and through the dogged dedication of disaster experts like Easthope, who has been an adviser on nearly every major disaster for the last twenty years, that the light comes in.

Inevitably, there are sections that are gruesome to read, but her account is never less than “riveting”. By drawing back the curtain on her “largely hidden” profession, Easthope’s “enthralling” book points the way towards a more humane approach. Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. The final part of the book which touches briefly on the pandemic only hints at the frustration that she must have felt, after years of struggling to convince those in power of the importance of detailed implementation and recovery plans, and training, to see things fall apart in the way that they did. Just the sheer amount of tragedy recounted in the book shows that you must be a well-grounded person, with a strong support network, to be able to work in this field.Easthope is excellent on these small yet significant details, which provide an insider’s perspective on situations that most of us will only ever experience via news reports. For example, she was riding the tube on 7/7 and thus experienced first-hand how people in the field respond to disasters when they actually happen.

My one criticism though is that the author has a strange air of knowing everything and being better than everyone else. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). Her ongoing concern for those who died and those who survived does not ignore the politics or incompetence but focuses on the impact on people which, as she points out, we shall be living with for a very long time. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. The book also reminded me of several events that I had blocked from my memory, even quite recent ones, such as a truck that was used for human trafficking, which contained the bodies of 39 Vietnamese victims.

Really enjoyed the audiobook as the author has a good reading voice and you can hear her emotions and professionalism as she covers the disasters sensitively. She has been an advisor on nearly every major disaster of the past two decades, including the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, 9/11, the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury Poisonings, Grenfell and most recently has been advising the Prime Minister's Office on the Covid-19 pandemic. As well as being grimly fascinating to read about, Easthope’s job is of crucial importance, said Matthew Reisz in The Observer. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.

With NHS psychiatrist Dr Rob Freudenthal, we designed the health/power/criminality-nexus to try and make sense of what was going on. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. When The Dust Settles, Lucy Easthope ( paperback March 23) ₩18,000 A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK*'It does for disaster what Rachel Clarke's Dear Life has done for palliative medicine and Adam Kay's This Is Going To Hurt for obstetrics. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham and Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.It does for disaster what Rachel Clarke's Dear Life has done for palliative medicine and Adam Kay's This Is Going To Hurt for obstetrics.