Mawer, Simon

Tells the story of Augustinian friar, Gregor Mendel, and his work and experiments in the field of genetics.

During World War II Briton Marian Sutro is recruited for service in the Special Operations Executive, only to find that another secret organization wants her to infiltrate Paris to persuade a research physicist to join the Allied war effort.

Genius Benedict Lambert, the great-great-great nephew of Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, enters the field of his ancestor in an attempt to discover the source of his dwarfism, while also trying to deal with frustrations of his life as a normal man in a deformed body.