First published 2025
Physicist Keizo Kan has lost everything to the war. American bombers killed his young daughter in the Great Tokyo Air Raid. The Thought Police have imprisoned his Japanese American wife Noriko. In August 1945, an American bomber crashes over Japan carrying an unusual payload. The Imperial Army brings Kan to examine the wreckage and discovers something extraordinary: a uranium bomb. The commanding officer makes Kan an offer. Unlock the weapon's secrets and Noriko goes free. Kan begins dismantling the device in secret, racing against time as Japan faces surrender. His assistant sickens from radiation exposure, ignored by officers desperate for results. The army wants more than understanding. They order Kan to prepare the bomb for a suicide mission against American forces. Kan faces an impossible choice between saving his wife and preventing catastrophe. Working in the ruins of Tokyo, where the starving population struggles under military collapse, he must decide what loyalty means when survival demands betrayal.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, war, thriller
Vibes: dark, intense, morally-complex, suspenseful, thought-provoking, tragic
Tropes: impossible-choice, moral-dilemma, race-against-time, sacrifice
Setting: Tokyo, Japan, America
Period: August 1945, World War II, Great Tokyo Air Raid
352 pages · Paperback · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: child-death, death, violence, war