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“Stirring . . . Susan Elia MacNeal’s page-turning prose is as entertaining as ever—I was riveted from beginning to end.”—Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network
June 1940. France has fallen to the Nazis, and Britain may be next—but to many Americans, the war is something happening “over there.” Veronica Grace has just graduated from college; she and her mother, Violet, are looking for a fresh start in sunny Los Angeles. After a blunder cost her a prestigious career opportunity in New York, Veronica is relieved to take a typing job in L.A.—only to realize that she’s working for one of the area’s most vicious propagandists.
Overnight, Veronica is exposed to the dark underbelly of her new home, where German Nazis are recruiting Americans for their devastating campaign. After the FBI dismisses the Graces’ concerns, Veronica and Violet decide to call on an old friend, who introduces them to L.A.’s anti-Nazi spymaster.
At once, the women go undercover to gather enough information about the California Reich to take to the authorities. But as the news of Pearl Harbor ripples through the United States, and President Roosevelt declares war, the Grace women realize that the plots they’re investigating are far more sinister than they feared—and even a single misstep could cost them everything.
Inspired by the real mother-daughter spy duo who foiled Nazi plots in Los Angeles during WWII, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy is a powerful portrait of family, duty, and deception that raises timeless questions about America—and what it means to have courage in the face of terror.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
September 20, 2022 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593156964
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593156964
- File size: 1990 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 1, 2022
Author of the Barry Award-winning, New York Times best-selling "Maggie Hope" series, MacNeal offers a stand-alone about a mother and daughter who move to Los Angeles in June 1940 to start life afresh. Daughter Veronica quickly realizes that her new boss is a vitriolic antisemite helping to recruit for the Nazi Party in the United States, but the FBI dismisses her claims as baseless. Thus do Veronica and her mother, Violet, end up going underground to assist Ari Lewis, the city's anti-Nazi spymaster.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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July 1, 2022
When MacNeal was researching The Hollywood Spy (2021), she became interested in the story of Grace and Sylvia Comfort, a real-life mother and daughter who were recruited to infiltrate the German American Bund in Los Angeles during WWII. This fictionalized version of that story sticks closely to the facts, with MacNeal limiting embellishments mainly to the backstories of Grace and Sylvia, who appear here as Violet and Veronica Grace, New Yorkers recently relocated to L.A., where would-be journalist Veronica takes a typing job for a couple who turn out to be Bund members. A friend of Violet's works in Naval Intelligence, and soon the women have an assignment: gather information on the Bund and its doings. Veronica's eagerness to take risks in the manner of her role model, Martha Gellhorn (""What would Martha do?""), leads to trouble. The narrative bogs down occasionally, with Veronica delivering some clich�d author's messages (""We need to transcend the hate""), but the historical material, all documented in an afterword, is thoroughly gripping: plans to sabotage aviation plants, lynch prominent Hollywood figures, and transform a Pacific Palisades ranch into ""Hitler's West Coast bunker.COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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July 25, 2022
In this riveting standalone from Edgar finalist MacNeal (the Maggie Hope WWII mysteries), mother and daughter Violet (“Vi”) and Veronica Grace move from New York to Santa Monica in 1940 and encounter homegrown Nazis. Veronica is smarting from the fallout of a love affair that has derailed her budding journalism career, and Vi is looking for a new path after her husband’s death. Veronica begins to do typing for Bund member Donald Pierce McDonnell, who introduces her to an array of people spouting antisemitic and pro-Hitler sentiments, and Vi meets their associates at a gathering of the isolationist group America First, including a prominent female aviator. As the appalled Veronica and Vi find that their respective secretarial and needlework skills provide an entrée to learning about the group’s disturbing and violent plans, they join up with operatives Ari Lewis and Jonah Rose, who keep tabs on such activities since the FBI is preoccupied with hunting communists rather than Nazis. Featuring characters based on real people, MacNeal provides a sobering reminder that pernicious elements can lie very close to home. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary.
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