Near the end of World War II, high on a mesa overlooking the shimmering New Mexico desert, an international team of scientists has gathered together to build the world's most dangerous weapon. Night and day, month after month, the labs and living quarters of this makeshift community buzz with activity as the top-secret operation draws closer to its goal: the building of the deadliest bomb in human history. A few more weeks, and the bomb will be completed; a week or two past that, and the war will be instantly and irrevocably ended.This, of course, is not fiction. Led by Robert Oppenheimer, a team of brilliant scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico did indeed work together on the Manhattan Project, the secret operation to build the world's first atomic bomb. Against this backdrop--and using Oppenheimer as one of the major characters--Joe Kanon has constructed an ingenious and utterly absorbing thriller.It begins with a murder. In April, 1945, the Project is moving smoothly forward until one evening, a body is discovered in nearby Santa Fe. Local police treat the case with routine suspicion, but when the victim is identified as a scientist from the Hill, the army launches a covert internal investigation to find the killer. Has the secrecy of the Project been compromised?