Max Perutz and the Secret of Life, by Georgina Ferry

It took Max Perutz 22 years to make his scientific breakthrough. "By the time he won his Nobel Prize [in 1962], the work for which he was honoured was already within the competence of an able graduate student," writes Georgina Ferry. In these days of tumultuous technological change, the achievements of even great scientists often have a short shelf-life. Only a brave and able science writer - and Ferry fits the bill admirably - could succeed in turning Perutz's life and work into an oddly compelling read.

Max is an unlikely hero. Born in Vienna in 1914, the sickly boy grew up in a wealthy household, his father a textile manufacturer, his mother a spoilt socialite. Of Jewish descent, the Perutzes had Max baptised as a Catholic, and sent him to a Catholic school. Entranced by chemistry, he set out to become a famous scientist; lack of ambition was never to be a problem.

Impressed by recent advances in biochemistry in Britain, he determined to finish his research in Cambridge, and landed at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1936. Strangely apolitical (Max maintained the Nazis had nothing to do with his decision to go to Cambridge), he found himself in a hotbed of radicalism. He kept his head down and got on with his task: to discover the three-dimensional structure of a vital protein, haemoglobin (which transports oxygen in the blood), using the new X-ray crystallography.

For the rest of his life (he died in 2002), Max remained at Cambridge, working on haemoglobin. In meticulous detail, Ferry describes his research, and that of his colleagues, making this biography an excellent introduction to the early days of a new science. By great good fortune, he found himself running the groundbreaking Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, with Francis Crick of DNA fame among a glittering array of stars.

Max acknowledged that "it was Cambridge that made me". Unlike Crick, famed for his fascinating conversation and wonderful parties, he lived soberly, cycling home from the lab to his two children and Gisela, his talented and supportive wife. Dogged by ill-health which often seemed psychosomatic, Max went off by himself to the Alps to climb and ski, leaving Gisela to cope with the children.

Quite often, Max is a difficult character to like. Desperate to succeed, he had a genius for collaboration. Crushingly, Crick called him "a plodder". The truth is that most successful scientists are, like Max, plodders with good contacts. Ferry's magisterial biography portrays science as a social enterprise, built on webs of expertise. Max cracked haemoglobin in the end, and won his Nobel Prize – with quite a lot of help from his friends.

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