"Rosalynd Pflaum risked bodily harm from Marie Curie's still radio active notebooks to produce this exhaustive account of two generations of Nobel-winning Curies and their profound effect on the development of modern physics. A brilliant student born into poverty in 19th-century Poland, Marie Sklodowska discovered her purpose in life in chemistry class at the Sorbonne in Paris. A penny-pinching, utterly humourless Polish patriot, Marie allowed herself a modicum of pleasure and relaxation only when conversing with Pierre Curie, a rising star in the world of physics. Once the two were married, Pierre interrupted his own work to collaborate with Marie on her doctoral study of radioactivity, and their definitive work on the structure of the atom began. The partnership continued until shortly after the couple were awarded the Nobel Prize, when Pierre (still in his 30s) was run over by a carriage and killed. Marie carried grimly on with her two daughters, the elder of whom developed into a research partner and winner of her own Nobel prize in collaboration with her scientist-husband. An undercurrent of growing contamination underlies this otherwise benign family success story, both literally (all the Curies suffered from multiple ailments attributable to exposure to radiation) and morally (as the scientists became involved with both Nazis and the French resistance in an effort to continue their work during the war, and as their research contributed increasingly to the development of the nuclear age). It is this sinister undercurrent that gives the otherwise overdetailed story its power."