This is a compelling and even harrowing read about the worst and most famous nuclear disaster in history ( or at least until Fukushima). The author interviewed hundreds of witnesses and had access to documents previously classified to tell the story of the meltdown in reactor 4 at Chernobyl in prose so riveting it’s like reading a thriller. The book shows what happens when an authoritarian state conceals scientific data about reactor design and takes shortcuts in training and safety measures - an accident whose causes and impacts were known only after the collapse of the Soviet state and the opening of its document repositories. The beginning is a bit slow if you don’t love physics and math but you’ll be happy the author set the stage as you read the rest of the book.