The Half Life of Valery K.

British novelist Pulley (The Kingdoms), noted for her speculative fiction and fantasy titles, here builds a thriller on the true story of a 1957 nuclear explosion near Chelyabinsk, a city in Siberia. Even today, the scientific record of this horrific incident is uninformative. The potential for catastrophe in this still-secret radioecological research center is alarming. Pulley imagines a second disaster in her volatile alt-history exploration. In 1963, Valery K, a biochemist sent to the gulag for political crimes, is reassigned to a lab in the center’s “chocolate factory,” where radiation research is ongoing. Very quickly he catches on to the explosive dangers bubbling in the lake where waste from 1957 was dumped. The people in charge pooh-pooh his concerns but he snags the attention of the resident KGB director. In an awesome twist, the two heroes work to prevent another massive blowout.