Sam Kean: "The Bastard Brigade" - sabotaging the Nazi atomic bomb effort

A fascinating ragtag group including a Jewish professional baseball player, a once-distinguished physicist, and a son of one of America's most famous families all figure into this remarkable history (that reads more like a notel) about the American effort during World War II to prevent the Nazis from developing an atomic bomb.

The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb

Sam Kean spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now he’s a writer in Washington, D.C.