Joseph Kanon's debut thriller, Los Alamos, captivated readers and critics alike and was awarded the 1998 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The Prodigal Spy, set in the aftermath of the Manhattan Project, offers a glimpse at cold war espionage and a very personal story about the effects of McCarthyism and the paranoia that it spawned. Once again, Kanon effortlessly weaves together history and fiction in prose that is thick with period details. The real achievement of the book, though, is the author's strong sense of his narrative center, Nick Kotlar. The novel begins in 1950 in the Kotlar home in Washington, D.C., as young Nick tries to make sense of the masses of reporters who have gathered outside his house. Though his parents struggle to shield him from the truth, he inadvertently sees a newsreel that reveals his father's predicament: State Department undersecretary Walter Kotlar is under the intense scrutiny of Congressman Kenneth Welles of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Kanon perfectly captures the sensibilities of a child with a parent in peril; disbelieving Nick becomes a fledgling spy, trying to erase any clues in his home that might support Welles and his committee. But one night, after an explosive conversation with Nick's mother, his father disappears. That same night, the woman who had accused Walter Kotlar of spying commits suicide--or was she murdered? In 1953, Mr. Kotlar gives a press conference from Moscow announcing his defect