While working on the top-secret Manhattan Project in WWII, young scientist David Maine meets and falls in love with married British chemist, Lois Madrigal. Everyone at the labs works at a mad pace to beat the Nazis to a functioning atomic bomb. While David and Lois explore their attraction for each other, Lois' husband, math expert Henry Madrigal, becomes even more reclusive and eccentric.
When a scientist is murdered in a basement lab, David suspects there is a spy at the project, despite the massive Army and FBI presence. David pokes around, checking facts, asking questions. He comes to believe that Lois' husband is not who he claims to be. On the eve of the first A-Bomb test, word arrives from England that Henry Madrigal may be an imposter! David grabs Lois and races after Henry before he can sabotage the bomb test and destroy a war-winning effort.
With seconds to go before detonation, David has to neutralize the spy and get Lois to safety. David has a genus idea, but can he manage it before the desert erupts in nuclear fire?
While working on the top-secret Manhattan Project in WWII, young scientist David Maine meets and falls in love with married British chemist, Lois Madrigal. Everyone at the labs works at a mad pace to beat the Nazis to a functioning atomic bomb. While David and Lois explore their attraction for each other, Lois' husband, math expert Henry Madrigal, becomes even more reclusive and eccentric.
When a scientist is murdered in a basement lab, David suspects there is a spy at the project, despite the massive Army and FBI presence. David pokes around, checking facts, asking questions. He comes to believe that Lois' husband is not who he claims to be. On the eve of the first A-Bomb test, word arrives from England that Henry Madrigal may be an imposter! David grabs Lois and races after Henry before he can sabotage the bomb test and destroy a war-winning effort.
With seconds to go before detonation, David has to neutralize the spy and get Lois to safety. David has a genus idea, but can he manage it before the desert erupts in nuclear fire?
The old gentleman looked up from his book, startled by a knock at the front door. That sound might be cause for alarm in the old country but not here. Not in America. He glanced down at a gold Longines wristwatch.
Almost noon.
Must be the mail.
Maybe they bring me a journal or package.
When his maid did not appear, Albert Einstein rose up and shuffled toward the door himself. It was a hot, humid day toward the end of summer; one of those sultry afternoons when a glass of cold Pilsner beer was a gift from heaven. As he walked, he smoked a long, curving briar pipe, leaving puffs of white smoke behind him like a cartoon locomotive.
This was his second year renting a cottage on Nassau Point, a splinter of land at the far end of Long Island. He loved the view from his parlor—wild, windblown dunes and the churning blue-gray waters of Peconic Bay beyond them.
The second knock was louder, more insistent.
“Jah, jah. Keep the pants on,” grumbled the old scientist in his thick Swabian accent. His maid was smoking a cigarette on the back porch; he was sure of it.
Did she think he was blind? Had no sense of smell? Did she think it was right for an altercocker to jump up and sign for a package himself?
Opening the door, Einstein’s bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. Before him stood not the mailman but a chubby, middle-aged Hungarian in a shiny gray suit.
As Einstein smiled in recognition, a non-Euclidian geometry of wrinkles spread across the contours of his famous face. He reached out and shook hands with his visitor.
“Ach, Leo, Leo. So good to see you. I thought you were the parcel post. Is this a new suit? Very nice. But such big lapels! Who needs them, jah?”
The Hungarian chuckled. “This suit is a year old, professor. And every time I wear it you say the same thing.”
Einstein shook a finger at his heavyset colleague. “You should have a tailor.”
“Ha!” said the Hungarian, “I should have a Viennese mistress with a nice bottom who can also cook.”
Einstein laughed so hard it hurt. “In a perfect world, jah? Come in my friend. If we are good boys, my nafka maid will bring us coffee and sandwiches.”
“Her name is Greta, you know?” said Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. (sill-ARD)
Einstein scowled. “It should be Hegel! She smokes like a philosopher. Come in, now. Come in.”
They went through the parlor with its big, bay window and into his study. Einstein shut the heavy oak door behind them. This narrow, sun-brightened room was a riot of technical papers, manuscripts and scientific journals. Tall, built-in bookcases lined two walls and were packed with thick, dark volumes in English and German.
Einstein lifted a stack of sheet music off an upholstered chair and gestured his guest into it; then he settled into a dark, leather desk chair, struck a wooden match and held it to his pipe. “Und zo?” he said, puffing.
Szilard carefully unzipped the shiny leather portfolio resting on his lap. He handed two freshly typed pages to Einstein. “It’s the final draft of our letter to Roosevelt, ready for you to sign.”
The old fellow shook his massive head. “You don’t need me for this, Leo. Sign it yourself.”
“Professor, you are the most respected scientist in the world. Even the President of the United States will stop what he is doing to read a letter from Albert Einstein. Especially when it regards scientific matters.”
“And Nazis.” said Einstein. “Is it true then? Hitler has Uranium from the Czech mines?”
Szilard nodded. “All of it.”
“And you think Werner Heisenberg leads their research program?”
“Yes,” said the Hungarian. “That alone is a warning for us. He’s a capable man. They have a lab somewhere in Austria. But we know very little. Won’t you sign it?”
“Leave it with me,” said Einstein. “Maybe I change a word or two.”
Szilard moaned. “Maestro, we must get the Americans moving right away—or it may be too late.”
“God forbid,” muttered Einstein.
“Yes, God forbid.” Szilard patted his face with a white linen handkerchief. The room felt tight and airless to him, very warm. He stood to shrug off his suit jacket, revealing a shorty tie and striped suspenders.
“We must urge them to start a commission on atomic energy, both weapons and scientific,” he said. “We will need factories the size of small cities to make the pure isotope—Uranium-235. President Roosevelt has the power to do this, no one else. And it must be done at once; before the Nazis can develop their own capacity.”
Einstein huffed. “That must not be allowed.”
“I think about it every day,” said Szilard, draping his jacket over the back of a chair. “Give them this one thing and they will conquer the world.”
“And you say this meshuga is practical?”
Szilard sighed. “Well, Bohr is certain.”
Einstein’s big, moist eyes opened wide. Lines creased his broad apse of a forehead. His voice hardened. “If Niels Bohr is certain, then Einstein must fall in line, jah? Why not have the good Emperor Bohr sign the letter?”
“Albert, Albert... don’t take offence. Only you—only the greatest theoretical physicist in history has enough stature to move the United States government to action.”
The aging genius settled down and was silent. He puffed up a haze of aromatic tobacco smoke as he finished reading the letter. Einstein looked over at Szilard. He tapped the pages with the stem of his pipe. “Is it too heavy for an airplane? You once said a hundred kilograms of isotope to sustain a chain reaction, no?”
Szilard sighed, “Those calculations were in error. Much less is required.”
Einstein chortled with delight. “Leo! You made a bad calculation?”
“We had incomplete data,” Szilard said with a shrug. “So, you’ll sign it?”
For a moment, Einstein looked old, desolate. “This ... bomb. My fault, no?”
Szilard shook his head. “I would never say that, professor. We discover the laws of nature; we don’t dictate them.”
Albert Einstein took the Swiss fountain pen Szilard offered him and carefully endorsed the second page of the letter. Neither man knew that this simple action would change the world forever.
“Leo, the date?”
“Second August, 1939.”
They shook hands to formalize the moment. “You will stay for lunch, yes?”
Szilard, carefully replaced the letter in his portfolio. “Edward Teller is waiting in the car; he drove me down here. You know how he sweats.”
Einstein squinted, deepening all his wrinkles. “Does Teller have a Nobel in Physics already?”
“No, professor.”
“Then, let him sweat. Come, my friend, I have kosher pickles.”
This is a period in history that I had not read much on, despite my love of historical novels. Atomic Affairs is a slow building historical spy novel that takes place at the end of WWII during the race to produce the first nuclear weapons. Henry and Lois Madrigal are two scientists on loan from England to work at the Los Alamos laboratory on the Manhattan Project. The fictional characters are blended in with real members of the program, such as Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Leo Slizard, George Kistiakowsky and others.
Henry and Lois are fairly newly married when they arrive at the base in New Mexico to begin their work on the project. Henry is a mathematician and Lois has expertise in nuclear energy. Each are assigned to separate projects. However, shortly after arriving, Lois sees some questionable activities. This is followed by the unexplained death of Dr. Kettlinger (one of the lead scientists).
Lois also falls for an American scientist, named David Maine, and struggles with her feelings of her betrayal of David. She both defends and is frustrated by Henry's shy behaviour with the others involved in the project, so she throws herself into her work and helps to figure out the challenges posed by the "gun method" for creating a critical mass and nuclear explosion. At the same time, Lois is pretty sure that something "not right" is going on. There seems to be a spy in their midst but which one of them is it?
Von Dare's writing does a great job at bringing this time period to life. I loved how he wove in the music of the time into the storyline and I ended up making a playlist to listen to while reading with the songs mentioned in the book (e.g., Tangerine by Tommy Dorsey, Stardust by Benny Goodman, and In the Mood and Tuxedo Junction by Glenn Miller).
It's a great mix of historical fix and spy thriller, which results in a thoroughly enjoyable read.