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Average rating4.3
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The suspense novel for all others to beat . . . [a] must read.”—The Denver Post WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL It is the spring of 1945, and in a dusty, remote community, the world’s most brilliant minds have come together in secret. Their mission: to split an atom and end a war. But among those who have come to Robert Oppenheimer ’s “enchanted campus” of foreign-born scientists, baffled guards, and restless wives is a simple man in search of a killer. Michael Connolly has been sent to the middle of nowhere to investigate the murder of a security officer on the Manhattan Project. But amid the glimmering cocktail parties and the staggering genius, Connolly will find more than he bargained for. Sleeping in a dead man’s bed and making love to another man’s wife, Connolly has entered the moral no-man’s-land of Los Alamos. For in this place of brilliance and discovery, hope and horror, Connolly is plunged into a shadowy war with a killer—as the world is about to be changed forever. Praise for Los Alamos “A magnificent work of fiction . . . a love story inside a murder mystery inside perhaps the most significant story of the twentieth century: the making of the atomic bomb.”—The Boston Globe “Compelling . . . [Joseph Kanon] pulls the reader into a historical drama of excitement and high moral seriousness.” —The New York Times “Thrilling . . . Kanon writes with the sure hand of a veteran and does a marvelous job.”—The Washington Post Book World
Reviews with the most likes.
Thought this would be a murder mystery set in 1945 in Los Alamos. It was, but there was a complicated love story that took up half the novel. Plus the investigator barely investigated. Giev it a miss.
A masterwork of suspense and love and history
The first book is the best, sometimes for authors. It seems to be true here. I read The Good German from Kanon first and loved it. This is even richer, full of love and faith and the dire consequence of a mission that would change the world. The language of the writing is a set of gems, too. He's the master of works from the 40s, bursting with history and the small but apt detail.