Rating: 
Summary: An excellent international spy type story
Review: I have read everything that Forsythe and Follett have written. I find international spy stories to be fascinating, especially by these two authors. The way that they can weave a spy mystery plot into the details of a specific international setting is masterful writing to me. I consider "The Day of the Jackal" to be at the top of the class for this genre. Follett's latest "The Hammer of Eden" continues this tradition.In "Los Alamos", Joseph Kanon writes in the same tradition. If nothing else, his setting of the Manhattan Project, and the portrayals of the personalities involved make this an historical novel of detail that brings the Project alive and makes it real. To weave a murder plot concerning National Security into the setting is masterful. The only drawback that I felt to the story was that the plot itself dragged slightly and was not as dramatic as the setting. For a first novel, Kanon has placed himself among the top of mystery writers and the book deserves the awards that it received. It was an excellent read. I look forward to now reading his second book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great promise, poor execution
Review: Kanon's novel promises a lot: A murder mystery set in World War II Los Alamos. Spies, the making of the first atomic bomb, and fascinating historical characters combine to make this potentially one of the great mystery/ suspense novels. Alas, it is not. The book collapses into implausibility and irrelevance.
On the subject of implausibility -- hopefully not giving away much of the (weak) plot -- the hero Mike Connolly just happens to meet by coincidence every key figure in the plot early on in the book. This is a hard pill to swallow when one figures that several thousand people worked at Los Alamos. Coincidence happens -- but not over and over and over again.
On the question of irrelevance, one assumes that the book is building up to a dramatic conclusion involving spy rings, national security, and villains of consequence. It's not. It's building up to a sordid little scandal -- unworthy of the setting and the promise of the book. In the words of the old song, "Is that all there is?"
Just to see if Kanon is improving, I took a look at his newer Book, "The Good German." He's hasn't: same weak reliance on coincidence and chance. Don't waste your time reading "Los Alamos" or "The Good German."
Rating:
Summary: Mystery and Murder Amidst the Manhatten Project
Review: This was a debut novel for Joseph Kanon, and it certainly shows a lot of promise. Kanon introduces many of us to a story most of us know little about-- the development of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Kanon does a fine job of painting a picture of the time and place, as it is Spring 1945 and the scientists and soldiers at Los Alamos are nearing the time of the first test explosions of the atomic bomb (in a passage in the book, Kanon stunning describes the explosion of the A Bomb as scientists and soldiers look on, many not even realizing what the advent of the A Bomb would mean or how it would affect them). Against this backdrop, a security officer, Karl Bruner, assigned to Los Alamos, has been murdered and Michael Connolly, an intelligence officer, has been sent in to solve it. Connolly must carefully navigate the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan Project while attempting to solve the mystery of Bruner's death. Along the way, he meets such luminaries tied to the project as Robert Oppenheimer (this book made me wish I could find a good biography on him). The conclusion is not totally satisfying as I did not find the resolution of the murder totally convincing, but the journey to that resolution is well worth the trip.
Rating: 
Summary: Tickling the dragon
Review: One would never know it by the title of this book, but it is, in fact, a murder mystery. The title gives away the fact that this isn't just ANY murder mystery. It takes place during the days of the Manhattan Project. A security guard is murdered, and an outsider is "brought in" to discern the situation. The big twist is that Army intelligence does not care so much who murdered the guard. Rather, the $60,000 question is WHY he was whacked. Was he simply mugged, as it would appear? Or did it have something to do with the security of the project? That's what the protagonist, Connolly, is there to find out. And fast! The plot of the book takes a backseat to the historical setting. Kanon does a wonderful job of interweaving the goings-on of Los Alamos. The fictional character of Connolly interacts wonderfully with figures such as General Leslie Groves and the famous physicists involved in the Top-Secret Project. Legendary names such as Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman and a few others enter into the pages of the story. This book that is highly recommended to anyone who is even vaguely interested in the Manhattan Project - whether they like "murder mysteries" or not. The ethics of making & using the bomb, the political polemics of Communism, the almost paranoia for secrecy @ Los Alamos & brief glimpses of the "gadget's" scientists are all enclosed within this book. Although the story is fiction, I can't imagine Los Alamos during the mid-1940s being much different than the way in which Kanon describes it in his novel. I can think of no greater compliment to give a work of historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A Nicely Done WWII Murder-Mystery-Romance
Review: I read quite a lot, including many techno-thrillers, and I know what I like. I liked Los Alamos quite a bit. I don't expect the author to have the science of the Manhattan Project exactly right. It's only the setting for the story, not the story itself. This is not a techno-thriller. It's a murder mystery/romance. The book is written in the first person for the most part, and the author adopts his protagonist's admittedly limited understanding of what the Manhattan Project was all about: building a really powerful weapon that would end the war. That's all Michael Connolly needed to know about what was going on at Loa Alamos in order to do his job of tracking down a murderer and a potential security breach, and that's all the author really gives the reader about the project. The author did an excellent job of setting the period scene, in the spring and oppressive summer of 1945 in and around Los Alamos, NM. I found the main characters engaging, and the historical fiction entertaining. There are no real good guys and bad guys in this book. Everybody in this story wears sort of a gray hat, with competing elements of good and evil within them. I found the book very entertaining, and look forward to reading something else by Mr. Kanon very soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Stinks
Review: This book stinks. It's a near identical rip of Fat Man and Little Boy, but with a lame fictional subplot of a murder mystery. The characters are very forgettable, the reason for being for some characters in the story is in doubt (the main character for one, the murder victim for another - a bad combo for a murder mystery). The author basically piggybacked a half baked short story into a pre-existing historical account to flesh it out to novel length, implausably working his main character into recorded historical events. Ignore this book, trust me, you won't care about the murder mystery or the characters. Rent Fat Man and Little Boy, it's far more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Readable but horrible
Review: Characters are wooden dolls, intrigue is primitive, principals act stupid just to make the action going, and the whole thing is melodramatic to say the least. Second star is for being well written.
Rating:
Summary: new mexicans are unamused
Review: an okay read to pass the time, if you're really desperate. however, as a native of new mexico, i was horrified by the characterization of it's two largest ethnic groups. all the native americans were maids and the two hispanic characters were murderous brutes. luckily we had the (one-dimensional) new yorker to come in and save us! kanon refers to new mexican hispanics as "mexicans". kanon, we do not like to be referred to as mexicans and have been a part of the southwest landscape centuries before the existence of mexico (independent of spanish rule), an american territory since the 19th century and an american state more than 3 decades at the time of this story. perhaps kanon should have spoken with some (non-white) locals during his supposedly "well-researched" writing of this mediocre novel. i'm just glad this book was a freebie for me. kanon, go elsewhere for your next novel, do not return to the "land of enchantment". why don't you set your next book in new york, where you live, i'm sure there are plenty of ethnicities to insult there.
Rating:
Summary: Murder mystery is more than it seems
Review: We start out with a simple murder. A man's been killed, and the circumstances seem to imply a homosexual liason gone wrong. The problem is that the victim is a security officer at the Los Alamos Atomic Weapons Facility, so someone must investigate thoroughly to make sure nothing's compromised. A peacetime newspaperman improbably turned detective shows up to investigate, and thus begins Joseph Kanon's Los Alamos. Moving from the desert to diners in New York City, the book has an easy sort of grace to it. The characters are fluent, and believeable, and the plot is fast enough to be interesting. Our hero gets a girl, the bad guys are interesting, it's all worthwhile, far as I was concerned. There are also interesting supporting characters, including General Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and a bunch of scientists. This makes for a very entertaining book.
Rating:
Summary: Transcends Genre Fiction
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Los Alamos, reading it into the wee hours. What's more, it's a mystery I can recommend to non-mystery readers because it so thoroughly rejects cliche and convention -- even its spies are unique. Michael Connolly is assigned to Los Alamos to investigate the murder of Karl Bruner,one of the site's security personnel. He could, and is encouraged to, take the easy route and call it case closed when local cops "persuade" someone to confess, but he keeps digging until he roots out the truth - though, to be completely accurate, he never detects the truth. He uncovers the spy by accident -- however, his detecting gives him the information needed to form the correct conclusion when he stumbles on critical information. The mystery is fair -- so fair that you share Connolly's frustration that there are no clues to the spy's collaborators. The entirety of the story, however, transcends mystery novels. There is an excellent romance sub-plot with a more complicated and original woman than you usually encounter in mystery/espionage stories. There is also the wonderfully executed historical backdrop complete with the small details of life that make for a true sense of place. Even minor characters have depths that surprise, such as Mrs. Weber's moments of insight that save her from being a stereotypical gossipy hen. I think the character of the spy is the most intriguing and wonderfully drawn in the book. There is a complexity and subtlety to this character that is rarely seen. In fact, that is where the book really shines, in subtlely facing the moral question of what they were doing there, what gave them permission to seek such destructive power, Kanon never preaches, but he makes you think.
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