The Bastard Brigade

New York: Back Bay Books. New. 2020. Paperback. 0316381675 . B & W ; 5.5 X 1.23 X 8.25 inches; xiv, 447 pages; Soft cover has black spine with tan lettering. Illustrated with b/w photographs. 'Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were so alarmed to learn that the Nazis were outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research, they assembled a motley crew of geniuses -- dubbed the Alsos Mission -- and sent them careening into Axis territory. Thrust into the dark world of international espionage, these scientists and soldiers played a vital and largely unknown role in turning back one of the darkest tides in human history. There's an ex-Major League Baseball catcher turned clandestine spy. There's Joe Kennedy Jr. , who died trying to out-macho his kid brother, future president John F. Kennedy. There are Nobel Prize winners, such as Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, and Ire´ne Joliot-Curie, daughter of Marie Curie. And dozens more. From "one of America's smartest and most charming science writers" (NPR) , comes the gripping, untold story of how Adolf Hitler was kept from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb'. Sources; index. .