Joseph Kanon is a brave man; for his first novel, Los Alamos, he has chosen the Manhattan Project as a backdrop and Robert J. Oppenheimer as a central character. The year is 1945, and a group of scientists squirreled away in the New Mexico desert are in a frenzied race with the Nazis to finish the first atomic bomb. Inside the fence that surrounds Los Alamos, everything moves according to plan; outside, however, something has gone horribly wrong. A security guard is found murdered in a city park, possibly the victim of a deadly homosexual encounter. But the niggling question remains: is this merely a private tragedy or, more alarmingly, a governmental security breach? To answer that question, the military calls in Michael Connolly, an intelligence officer who quietly continues the slain man's investigation. Connolly's efforts are complicated by reluctant scientists, a local sheriff, and a love affair with Emma Pawlowski, the mysterious wife of one of Los Alamos' scientists.

Eventually, of course, the scientists complete their bomb and Michael Connolly gets his man. If the historically based scenes seem a little flat (what fiction, after all, can compete with the reality of that first mushroom cloud?), the mystery at the heart of Los Alamos is brisk and entertaining, and the moral questions it poses give you something to ponder once the killer is uncovered.

2003-02-13 Sunny yet Sultry

I started this book with very little in the way of expectation other than an interesting diversion for a couple of days. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised to discover a rather neat murder mystery inside an overbearing period of human history.

Whenever I read about the bomb I always consider the theory that it marks exactly a moment in time when man moved from the past to the present; the period when man could truly wipe himself from the planet forever. So to chose the conception of this as mere background to a story shows either confidence or arrogance by the author. In this case I honestly feel that the author just wanted to add colour to what was essentially a rather dry scientific experiment (albeit a big one).

The murder mystery is investigated by a character with good presence and intelligence. It was with genuine surprise that I discovered the culprit at the end, but then the author had been distracting me occasionally with the end of mankind as we know it at critical junctures(a good tool for all potential Agatha Christie's). The pace of the book perfectly equates to the hot environment portrayed within. It skulks along, but never plods, keeping us interested at all times. Yet taking a breather every now and then.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys crime novels within an interesting historical period. I would not forward it as a serious attempt to unravel the Manhattan Project though.