A thinking man's thriller

The pleasure of most crime novels, even the better-than-average ones, dissipates once the mystery is solved and the bad guy is caught (or not).

But that's not the case with Joseph Kanon's 1997 novel "Los Alamos," a crime drama set in Los Alamos, N.M., during the development of the first atomic bomb.

The premise of Kanon's debut novel is fairly conventional: A former reporter is brought to Los Alamos as an intelligence officer to investigate the murder of a Manhattan Project security guard Karl Bruner. Bruner's death could be the result of a sexual encounter gone wrong — or it could threaten the future of the project.

The intelligence officer, Michael Connolly, must discover who killed Bruner without disrupting the work of scientists racing to finish the bomb and end World War II. But Connolly soon finds that his assignment is more complicated than he thought — especially when he falls in love with the wife of one of the scientists.

In outline, the book sounds like another ho-hum historical mystery. But Kanon takes these materials and turns them into a novel so fresh, so compelling, that it rewards multiple re-readings.

Kanon has clearly done his research, and his novel boasts a rich atmosphere that makes you feel as if you are walking the streets of 1940s Los Alamos, eavesdropping on the most important project of the century. More than that, he creates a cast of thoroughly realized characters — even the minor ones — and makes you care about their fate long after the mystery is solved.

If "Los Alamos" has a fault, it's that Kanon sacrifices the headlong momentum of traditional crime fiction for a more leisurely pace that feels more like literary fiction. But his approach more than pays off in the end.

"Los Alamos" is smart, witty and deeply moving, and it's rewarding on many levels. So do yourself a favor and pick it up from your local library. You won't regret it.