I recently read The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb, a nonfiction book that deals with with America’s part in the race towards atomic weaponry across the US and Europe but doesn’t handle the human costs of that race. Tangles does just that. It successfully combines what I’d call a “quiet thriller” and a star-crossed romance while looking at the horrific damage to the environment—and people’s and animals’ DNA—which the government covered up.
Mary, a secretary at a nuclear facility, and Luke, her young next-door neighbor, uncover the government’s role in allowing nuclear fallout to contaminate entire communities in the Pacific Northwest and its failure to ameliorate the destruction. The two fight the government, a force beyond their control, as they collect evidence to prove the fallout.
Smith-Blum’s dual point-of-view novel on the history of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is well-researched. Her characters are well-developed, though the abusive husband seems a bit cardboard. I was both outraged (though goodness knows why, considering our government and its tendency toward clandestine activities) and haunted by the delicate love story that underlies the action.
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Tangles (Black Rose Writing, December 3, 2024) is available through:
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You can read my review of Bastard Brigade here.
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