Alfred Nobel, inventor of nitroglycerin and inspiration for the Nobel Peace Prize, visited the United States twice. Koppargruva, from Hugh Coyle's forthcoming book Peace at Last, is a fictionalized account of one of those excursions. Dubbed a killer by American journalists because of recent accidental nitroglycerin blasts in Panama and San Francisco, Nobel faces his tarnished reputation head on while searching for any sliver of redemption.