"Frank Close brings a fresh perspective to the story...impressively researched." —Guardian
"[Close's] book is a fully dimensioned life that is vital, illuminating and absorbing, often in the vain of a thriller." —Times Literary Supplement
"[Close] gives fascinating insight into the science behind the Iron Curtain...without going into the kind of depth which might frighten non-scientists." —Literary Review
"Compelling...fascinating...beautifully written...likely to remain the definitive history of an elusive and long misunderstood character." —BBC History
The memo landed on Kim Philby's desk in Washington, DC, in July 1950. Three months later, Bruno Pontecorvo, a physicist at Harwell, Britain's atomic energy lab, disappeared without a trace. When he re-surfaced six years later, he was on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
One of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, Pontecorvo was privy to many secrets: he had worked on the Anglo-Canadian arm of the Manhattan Project, and quietly discovered a way to find the uranium coveted by nuclear powers. Yet when he disappeared MI5 insisted he was not a threat. Now, based on unprecedented access to archives, letters, surviving family members and scientists, award-winning writer and physics professor Frank Close exposes the truth about a man irrevocably marked by the advent of the atomic age and the Cold War.
