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Library Journal
Reviewed on December 20, 2012 | E-Originals
Real-life spy stories can read like the best fiction, and Sheinkin (The Notorious Benedict Arnold, 2009) knows exactly how to write them. In Bomb, he interweaves three stories of high espionage, starting with Harry Gold, the spy who fed the Soviets the secrets of Los Alamos. Then there is Knut Haukelid, a ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Magazine
Reviewed on September 1, 2012
While comprehensive in his synthesis of the political, historical, and scientific aspects of the creation of the first nuclear weapon, Sheinkin focuses his account with an extremely alluring angle: the spies. The book opens in 1950 with the confession of Harry Gold -- but to what? And thus we flash back to Robert Oppenheimer in the dark 1930s, as he and readers are handed another question by the author: “But how was a theoretical physicist supposed to save the world?” Oppenheimer’s realizatio...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Horn Book Guide
Reviewed on January 1, 2012
While comprehensive in its synthesis of the political, historical, and scientific aspects of the creation of the first nuclear weapon, this ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More
Junior Library Guild
Reviewed on October 1, 2012
Incisive and exciting, Steve Sheinkin’s stellar history has the pacing of a thriller. A riveting prologue, set in 1950, plunges readers into the story as FBI agents corner Harry Gold, a spy for the Soviets and a central figure in the book. Individuals, including Norwegian resistance fighters, scientists, pilots, survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, and world leaders are fleshed out with vivid descriptions. For example, Robert Oppenheimer, a skinny, chain-smoking professor who later became technical director of the Manhattan Project, is introduced with a memorable anecdote about how he once left a date in his car at the Golden Gate Bridge to take a walk and end...Log In or Sign Up to Read More