City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

A Fierce Radiance, a Washington Post Best Novel of the Year and NPR Best Mystery of the Year, is a beautiful valentine to 1940s New York City. Its main character, Claire Shipley, stumbles upon the greatest story of

her career when she is assigned to take pictures of the scientists at the Rockefeller Institute who, as part of a secret war project, are working against time to develop life-saving antibiotics.