The story of a great scientific discovery usually involves a combination of inspiration, hard work, and serendipity. While all these ingredients play a part in the discovery of DNA, the relationships between the four individuals who pieced together the double-helix model of the master molecule provides a subplot tainted by controversy. At the center of this quartet stands British geneticist Rosalind Franklin, who made key contributions to studies of the structures of coals and viruses, in addition to providing the scientific evidence upon which James Watson and Francis Crick based their double-helix model. Compounding the irony that Franklin died four years before Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for this discovery (the Nobel Committee honors only living scientists), is James Watson's characterization of Franklin in his personal chronicle of the search for the double-helix as a competitive, stubborn, unfeminine scientist. Despite his account, Franklin has...