The Cloud Chamber - Softcover

'A clever and graceful novel ... George delivers an ambitious account of scientific enquiry, a spy story and an exploration of the morality of mass destruction.' -- Stephen Blanchard, Time Out 20030319 'A smartly executed novel, part spy story, part scientific thriller, part romance' -- Observer 20030201 'Compelling and masterful ... at once a spy story, an exploration of the moral complexity of the Bomb and an engaging reconstruction of an historic era' -- Richard Rhodes, winner of the Pulitzer Prize 20030201 'Enchantingly recounted' -- Guardian 20030308 'This erudite and technically accomplished novel imparts a great deal about the splitting of the atom in the 1930s and the moral maze that led to the Atomic Bomb' -- Publishing News 20021108

Walter is a young Australian who comes to England (falling in love with a beautiful and feisty schoolteacher on the boat journey) to follow his dream of being a scientist at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge. There he falls under the spell of the charismatic scientists involved in splitting the atom and the other experiments that eventually led to the building of the atomic bomb. In 1945, in London, an older, disillusioned Walter struggles to keep his marriage together and to come to terms with what he - as a pacifist - saw as a terrible betrayal by his mentors and his best friend Alan Nunn May. Meanwhile, Nunn May is back in London, keeping a low profile and being shadowed by a rather inept and unenthusiastic spy. Walter is the only person Alan has seen since his return and so unwittingly, he and his family fall under surveillance too...The story that unfolds is an engrossing tale of friendship and betrayal, of forgiveness and enduring love and of the dangerous burden of scientific knowledge.