Manhattanproject Stories

Young Lena Bentheim is forced to flee Nazi Germany for Chicago in 1935, leaving her family and boyfriend behind. After learning English, she eventually finds a new life as a secretary in the Physics Department of the University of Chicago. She meets and marries another German refugee scientist and has a child. Then tragedy strikes, and Lena is forced to spy on the nuclear fission experiments at the U of Chicago. A novella set in the early years of the Manhattan Project, The Incidental Spy is another fascinating historical thriller by Libby Fischer Hellmann, also the author of the highly acclaimed stand-alone thrillers Set the Night on Fire, A Bitter Veil, and Havana Lost.

Based on a real life interview with Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer

Anne wants nothing more than to disappear on her grandmother's foggy island on the coast of Maine, but once she learns a scientist working with the government wants to get his hands on the theory her grandmother wanted to keep secret, she has to act - even if it means traveling through time.

As a history student I am infatuated by the past. World War Two was something I couldn't resist writing about. The battles on land, sea and air shaped the nature of warfare today. What continues to intrigue me, however, is the way WW2 was resolved. Most wars follow an arc synonymous to a plot of a story. They have rising action, a climax and a resolution. WW2, on the other hand, saw its conclusion in its climax with the release of the atomic bomb. I was heavily inspired by this unique ending, so much so that I decided to write a short chapter based on the events that took place on August 6th 1945.