Dr. Hannah Weiss is a beautiful Jewish physicist from Austria who has been working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. Her status as an Austrian citizen has been protecting her so far, but the tide is turning as the Nazis are gaining more of a foothold and things are getting more uncomfortable. She works with Dr. Stefan Feis, who is literally a golden boy, wealthy, handsome, charming and extremely well-connected, as his father Max heads the Institute. Hannah finds herself attracted to him, in spite of his German lineage, and enjoys working with him, even if she is relegated to the basement as the "Jewish slave," as she is sometimes referred to by others.
Although Hannah lost her father to mustard gas in the war, she stays with her uncle and her beloved younger cousin, Sabine. Sabine is spirited and rebellious and makes no attempt to hide her contempt for the German menace, even while living in Berlin. When she gets herself into trouble, Hannah turns to Stefan for help, as the pair has been growing closer. She must put her complete trust in Feis, as Sabine's life and future is truly in his hands. Further, Hannah must trust that Sabine is safely out of Europe with nothing but Stefan's word. Just how much trust should she put in him?
Fast-forward forward to April, 1945, and Hannah has escaped Germany and is working with Robert Oppenheimer on the atom bomb project at the Los Alamos base in New Mexico. Major Jack Delaney has been sent to the site to ferret out a spy who is suspected of leaking critical information from the project to the Germans, who are in a race with America to be the first to possess the war-ending monstrosity. There are many European scientists who could be the culprit, but Delaney sets his sites on Dr. Weiss since she worked closely in Germany with a Swiss scientist named Gregor Stern and has been sending cryptic postcards to him for quite some time. Are they both working with Dr. Stefan Feis, who is still at Kaiser Wilhelm, in an attempt to give Germany an edge?
Hannah holds many secrets, but Jack has a few of his own. As the pair play a dangerous game of cat and mouse, seeing who will open up to the other first, other forces are at work. This delicate dance could end in treason and a hangman's noose, or worse, Germany's victory in World War II.
I tore through Hannah's War in three sittings. It has intrigue, danger, romance, science, and WWII, a favorite subject of mine. If you have any interest in WWII and the happenings of that time, do yourself a favor and check out Hannah's War. It is a brilliantly written and compelling novel that shines a light on an oft-neglected sector of the scientific community during that time. Highly, highly recommended.
