cover image Slow Through Eden

Slow Through Eden

Gordon Glasco. Poseidon Press, $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-62305-0

In 1920 Young David Linz, a Jewish American physicist studying in Germany, meets and falls in love with Katherine von Steiner, a brilliant German physicist. Published posthumously, Glasco's ( The Days of Eternity ) third novel is a seamless welding of historical fact and romantic fiction. Despite the objections of Katherine's father, a Prussian officer and rabid anti-Semite, Katherine and David marry, have a child and begin to unlock the secrets of the atom. At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin 18 years later, on the brink of discovering atomic energy, they are too absorbed in their work to note the dangers of Kristallnacht and the Nuremberg Laws. Finally fleeing to France, David and their son Jacob barely escape arrest. Katherine remains behind. In Paris, convinced Katherine is dead, David becomes romantically involved with Aloise, a Russian agent who just before the fall of France arranges their passage to England. The personal histories of David, Katherine, Jacob and Aloise unfold simultaneously with the race between Germany and the Allies to produce the first bomb, played out in Berlin, Paris, London, Moscow and Los Alamos. A fast-paced romantic thriller. (Sept.)