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Review by Edward Morris
Los Alamos is engaging on so many levels that no single genre label can do the novel justice. Although it begins as a conventional murder mystery, the book quickly develops into a historical drama, a love story, and a relentless inquiry into the nature of morality under stress. All this may sound a bit ponderous, but it's really quite the opposite. First-time novelist Joseph Kanon unreels his intertwining tales of intrigue with the economy, grace, and fluidity of a master movie-maker.
In 1945, Los Alamos, New Mexico, is a heavily guarded company town -- an "instant city" built by the U. S. government to house the scientists, technicians, and support staff who will create the first atomic bomb. This sun-baked city is inhabited by some of the best and quirkiest minds on the planet, a contentious collection of native-born talent and European refugees of every political stripe. And towering over them all is the vain and troubled head of "the Project," J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Into this volatile setting comes former newspaperman Michael Connolly, now a civilian investigator assigned to Army intelligence. His job is to find out who murdered Karl Bruner, a top security officer for the project. In so doing, he must also discover if Bruner's death has compromised the secrecy of the undertaking. Was Bruner killed because he was gay (as the crime scene suggests)? Did it have anything to do with the fact that Bruner, a Jew, had fallen afoul of both the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Russia before coming to America? Or was it simply a random killing? First, Connolly has to learn the culture and folkways of "the Hill," as mesa-perched Los Alamos is familiarly known. He observes how the deadline-driven scientists amuse themselves in their off-hours. He meets and quickly falls in love with Emma Pawlowski, the cynical English-born wife of a Polish-born scientist attached to the project.
As the story unfolds, the moral dilemmas blossom. Is Emma's chief duty to love or marital fidelity? Is Connolly right in pressing her to make the choice? Which deserves the one's utmost loyalty -- country or political ideal? Should a scientist pursue truth without regard to its probable uses and consequences? Kanon doesn't attempt to answer these questions, but he leaves no doubt about their abiding importance.
Beyond his very evident skills in plotting and character-building, Kanon is equally good at capturing the details, mood, and feel of the times. The heat and glare of the desert seem to radiate from the page. The scientists' excitement at breaking new ground is palpable and contagious. If there is a jarring note, it is in Connolly's too-prescient conversations with Oppenheimer. It is hard to accept that a man who plods so slowly and methodically through a murder investigation would simultaneously have such a keen awareness of what the future may hold. Otherwise, Kanon writes with the maturity and assurance of an old hand.
Edward Morris is a Nashville journalist.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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