Described (by Robert Harris) as an "expert blend of nuclear history and international intrigue", Peter Millar's Stealing Thunder is a complex work of fiction which deftly weaves two narratives together. The first, "The Legacy", reconstructs the scene--both heroic and murderous--of the Manhatten Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1944-45: the discovery of the atom bomb which, as Millar notes at the beginning of the book, "for better or worse, shaped the rest of the 20th century". Stealing Thunder is keyed into that ambivalence--"The men who were afraid put on suntan lotion in the dark"--exploring the political and ethical dilemmas of the scientists charged with changing the history of war and weaponry. That dilemma is also the starting point for the novel's contemporary narrative: Eamonn Burke, freelance correspondent-- "Burke was good, the word on the street went, bloody good, in fact"--drawn into investigating the death of Klaus Fuchs (a key player at Los Alamos, and "the bloke who stole the secret of the atom bomb") by an East German reporter, Sabine Kotzke. The (predictable) sexual charge between Burke and Kotzke accompanies the investigative plot which, drawing its protagonists into a world of intrigue and murder, uncovers the history of Los Alamos. --Vicky Lebeau