Kanon, a former publishing executive, has penned an extraordinarily tight first novel set in Los Alamos during the waning months of World War II. When a Manhattan Project security officer is found murdered, civilian intelligence liaison Michael Connolly is called in to investigate. Reporting directly to project honcho J. Robert Oppenheimer, Connolly wades through a sea of white-coated brainiacs intent on perfecting "the gadget," local yokels who have no idea what the scientists "up on the hill" are up to, and paranoid army officers who obsess over the loyalty of the project's key personnel, most of whom are expatriated Europeans.

Not AR rated