She has written five books about World War II, three of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of WWII, 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, and A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Asia and America, she received a BA degree (cum laude) in Political Theory from Bryn Mawr College in 1982, and double-majored in philosophy at Haverford College.
Additionally, she was a contributing editor for Esquire, GQ, and Vanity Fair, from which she resigned to write her first book, Tuxedo Park.
Her profile of James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double-helix, was featured in The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2004.
"[17] Jonathan Yardley in a Washington Post review of The Irregulars said that "As was true of her excellent first book, Tuxedo Park, in The Irregulars she removes the dust of history from a forgotten but important figure to be reckoned with before and during the war.