Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Book review: Bones of Betrayal by Jefferson Bass

Author: Jefferson Bass
Rating: 8/10
Review: Leonard Novik, a famous physicist, who was a leader of the Oak Ridge laboratory in Tennessee during World War II, is found dead. He's been murdered in a very unusual way: He's swallowed a highly radioactive pellet, and died of radiation poisoning. Now, the protagonist of the novel, Bill Brockton, must figure out who did this; to do that, he'll have to find out how it was done and why.

That's the basic plot of Bones of Betrayal, but there are lots of other things going on. There are two love stories - one between Bill Brockton and a librarian, and another between Brockton's assistant Miranda and an FBI agent. There's lots of detail about the work done at Oak Ridge back in the 40's - and about some of the social attitudes of the people who worked there. There are interviews between Brockton and Novik's ex-wife, Beatrice, who met Novik when both were working on the bomb.
  There are twists and twists in the plot, which I won't reveal, but Bones of Betrayal ties the twists together into a neat braid, rather than a mess of tangles.

There's also thoughtful commentary on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and about the whole arms race; the authors provide both sides of the debate through the characters of Miranda and her lover.

The novel isn't perfect - some of it is a little too neat, or pat, for my tastes, but it's a highly enjoyable read. One warning, parts of it, especially near the beginning, are fairly explicit discussions of autopsies and related matters. If that's not your thing, this book (and, indeed, this series) may not be for you. But if you don't mind that sort of explicit detail, I think you'll enjoy this book.

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