Rating: 
Summary: At least the writing ain't bad
Review: About the only thing Los Alamos has going for it is good writing. The plot is weak; the "detective" does little detecting; the sex, while intrusive and out of place, isn't titilating; but the writing is good. Kanon uses mature diction and correct grammar. While the story is nothing great, it is a pleasure to see a competent craftsman weilding the tools of his trade well. You won't be sorry you read this book, but it won't keep your spouse awake with the rustle of pages being flipped. I did enjoy the occassional inclusion of real people in the story. There were some genuine characters at Los Alamos and every now and again Kanon reveals a hint of the flavor of that time an place. (e.g. Feinman was cutting up a letter to mail to his wife simply to annoy the censors.)
Rating:
Summary: this is just an okay novel!
Review: This story is not "thrilling and provocative" as advertised. It does produce some excitement toward the end of the novel. I enjoyed Mr. Kanon's portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer. He seemed to capture the social and military pressure that was placed on Oppenheimer. This novel is not as "riveting" as advertised on the paperback, but it is worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting read
Review: I liked this book, partly because I lived in Los Alamos as a child and partly because I am interested in the historical aspects of the Manhattan Project. As a thriller it was pretty good independent of those aspects, because the plot was complex enough that you couldn't see where the author was going with it from a million miles away. Of course the guy gets the girl in the end, but it seemed fresh and interesting to me.
Rating: 
Summary: A dud.
Review: What a disappointment! This novel does nothing to set the atmosphere, reading more like a modified screenplay (which I'm suspecting was one of the motivations playing in Kanon's mind). The characters are poorly (re)imagined, the settings dismissively portrayed, and the writing style unremarkable. Also, I had the feeling that the author didn't work on immersing himself in the circumstances of New Mexico, WWII, or the Project. It's all too contemporary in parts (seems like it's pulled out of the 1980s instead of the 1940s). Finally, the plot is too simplistic and rather dull. A dud.
Rating: 
Summary: 300 pages too long
Review: well, i finished the thing. took DAYS because it just was not captivating. but i couldn't believe that all of the hype on the cover was wrong - there had to be some wonderful nuanced ending. but no, the book had too much repetition of the "secrecy" thing, not enough plot, gratuitous sex, and...as i've said before, 300 extra pages. wait. make that 350 extra pages. save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Jumping Off the Shelves?
Review: I purchased this book in an airport because the clerk said it had been "jumping off the shelves." After reading this book I can assure you that the books were "jumping off the shelves" in an effort to avoid a more painful death. I was disappointed. Don't pick this up unless you are looking for something to put you to sleep.
Rating:
Summary: interesting plot with no conclusion
Review: The premise had promise a murder of one of the people inviolved with the nations most secret project, the building of the first atomic bomb. The main thrust of the book is not the building or the interpersonal conflict that arise from the creation of the bomb, you learn nothing of it from the book. The point seems to be how often the main character can have sex with the wife of one of the bombs builders. Once the covert spying network is uncovered nothing happens. Great expectations, no delivery.
Rating:
Summary: Is that all there is?
Review: As an avid reader and student of military history, and as someone with a surpassing interest in the history of science and technology, I was breathless with anticipation over "Los Alamos." Having read extensively about the history of the atomic bomb I couldn't wait to read a novel with the Manhattan Project as its backdrop. Mr. Kanon, I think, got the science, the setting, and the mood right. But like some of the other reviewers here, I found it difficult to care about Karl's murder. I found the dialogue, through which Mr. Kanon develops his plot more than through narrative, to be a bit noirish and facile for my taste. I thought the book was at its best when tha author wrote of the desert, of the race to build the "gadget", and of the moral and intellectual dilemmas faced by the scientists on the project. Theirs was arguably the greatest technical feat of this century, in a project whose scale and expense was exceeded only by the B-29 project (the delivery vehicle for the Bomb, ironically.) The romance between Connolly and Emma was just too predictable for my taste, and it seemed to have too little to do with the central problem: who killed Karl, why was he killed, and what are the implications for the Project. I think I was hampered by my own expectations. Perhaps I should have reread Richard Rhodes' book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", instead. I'll be less grumpy after Christmas!
Rating:
Summary: Overrated, too long
Review: This book was so hyped that I really wanted to read it and like it. However, after struggling through the first 100 pages, I still had no interest in the murder of Bruner. Instead of building the murder case/investigation up, Kanon opts unsuccessfully to develop the romance between Connolley and Emma. Their stilted conversations became tiresome, and Kanon's feeble attempt to portray the two as flirtatious fell quite flat. As a thriller, the book is okay. As a romance, it is unsuccessful. If you must try this book, go for the paperback version
Rating:
Summary: John LeCarre meets Tony Hillerman
Review: As a refugee from the project in the early '50s to being a refugee from Technocracy, I lived the moral challanges of the "business" as we called it, and through perserverence escaped. Raised as a depression kid, growing up siphoning gas to fill an "A" stamped '41 Chevy to go and try to score with a slick chick, I've been there. Now Anasazi-land is my refuge from the Jemez to the Land of the Hopis. Kanon has got it!
I'm uncertain as to how he got the feel - but he's got it. The feelings: Tension; Suspicion; Paranoia; Desparation; Passion and Hope The desperate days of '45. The end in sight. The solution at hand. Yet always The Soviets. But the morality question shrouding all. I think of my friends doomed at the beaches of Honshu, then look at the devestation of Hiroshima. The excitement of valor in battle lost forever. Sherman was right - "War is Hell". Kanon senses this - and blends it with the passion and excitement of a steamy extra-marital affair. All this is played out in Tony Hillerman's turf. I fully expected Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn to come in and clear up the whole mess with the wisdom exclusive to the Navaho tribal police.
The descriptions of the high mesa country, Chaco Canyon and the southwestern's toughest desert - White Sands can only have been written by a person who has climbed the heights, seen the sunsets, felt the heat and eaten the dust. Surely Kanon was born there.
But he was none of the above - yet he can spin a yarn about all of this with the best.
There are times the book starts to stall, yet he picks up the pace again; and the end was a bit abrupt. But considering this is a first effort - He done damn good!
I can see this as a powerful film with proper handling. (It could be a dud with mis-casting, poor rewrite and direction coupled with a stingy producer.) But the seeds are here. Let them flourish so that others share the world so few of us survived.
Rated 8 as nothing is perfect and there are a few spots that weakened the story. But most certainly not the grasp of the era, the definition of the characters, the beauty of the countryside, the heat of passion and the terrifying challange of the Manhatten Project.
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