The Rumor Game
A Novel
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A determined reporter and a reluctant FBI agent face off against fascist elements in this gripping historical thriller set in World War II-era Boston.
Reporter Anne Lemire writes the Rumor Clinic, a newspaper column that disproves the many harmful rumors floating around town, some of them spread by Axis spies and others just gossip mixed with fear and ignorance. Tired of chasing silly rumors about Rosie Riveters' safety on the job, she wants to write about something bigger.
Special Agent Devon Mulvey, one of the few Catholics at the FBI, spends his weekdays preventing industrial sabotage and his Sundays spying on clerics with suspect loyalties—and he spends his evenings wooing the many lonely women whose husbands are off at war.
When Anne’s story about Nazi propaganda intersects with Devon’s investigation into the death of a factory worker, the two are led down a dangerous trail of espionage, organized crime, and domestic fascism—one that implicates their own tangled pasts and threatens to engulf the city in violence.
With vibrant historical atmosphere and a riveting mystery that illuminates still-timely issues about disinformation and power, Thomas Mullen delivers another powerful thriller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mullen follows 2023's Blind Spots with a well-researched if underheated thriller set in Boston during WWII. Chapters alternate between two perspectives: that of spunky, idealistic reporter Anne Lemire, born Jewish and raised Catholic, who's begun to use her gossip column to investigate a rise in antisemitic attacks, including a recent assault on her younger brother, and that of FBI Special Agent Devon Mulvey, a Catholic womanizer who's investigating a case of stolen munitions that ended in murder. Anne and Devon knew each other as children, and they kindle a thin, predictable romance when their investigations intersect. It turns out Devon's nephew was the man who beat Sammy, who is sleeping with a woman linked to the munitions theft. As Anne and Devon dig deeper into Sammy's transgressions, they uncover an espionage plot and run afoul of a local crime syndicate whose operations indicate that fascist ideologies aren't as remote as Americans might hope. The protagonists' motivations are often thin (Devon's attracted to Anne because she's "forbidden"; Anne chases down fascists for "fun"), but the pace of the last hundred pages is breathtaking, and Mullen works in fascinating details about the stateside political climate during WWII. This doesn't rank with the author's best, but history buffs will enjoy themselves.
