A detailed account of the Chernobyl accident and the aftermath.

I listened to the audiobook and I found the story of the individual members a little confusing because of the large number of Russian names. I think this may be easier to follow with text. The story was compelling and I learnt a lot of new details about the accident which I thought I was familiar with before.

The most interesting revelations for me were the details of the design of the reactor and how unstable it was under certain circumstances. I had assumed operator error but there were scenarios where the reaction could become unstable under fairly normal operation. Even the operators knew it was treacherous compared to other reactors that they had worked on.

Coverups, corruption, bad design, bad workmanship all played a part. Over all it is a good read for both pro and antinuclear readers as the dangers are well explained.