Louise's Gamble
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Young widow Louise Pearlie becomes embroiled in a perilous game of mafia bosses, Nazi spies, and banished royalty in this wartime novel of suspense.
It's 1942 in Washington, DC. Louise Pearlie is now a chief file clerk at the legendary Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, and enjoying being an independent, working woman despite wartime privations. But a casual friendship struck up with Alessa di Luca, a secretive war refugee, sucks Louise into a dangerous game of mafia bosses, Nazi spies, banished royalty, and Sicilian aristocracy—placing not only her job, but her life, in jeopardy . . .
"Shaber brews a delightful mix of feminine wiles and real-life history that will keep readers turning the pages." —Publishers Weekly
"Shaber has created a wonderful cast of characters . . . A wonderfully entertaining read." —Historical Novel Society
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Shaber's winning second WWII-era novel of suspense (after 2011's Louise's War), 30-year-old widow Louise Pearlie, who clerks for the OSS in Washington, D.C., befriends Alessa di Luca, "a penniless female refugee" she meets at her knitting circle. When Alessa gives Louise a written message to take to her superiors, it turns out that her new friend is really Countess Alessa Oneto, and her message involves critical intelligence concerning mob protection of New York City and other nearby ports from which supplies ship to the North African front. Plucky Louise soon finds herself enmeshed in intrigue involving Sicilian royalty, a Russian-born OSS colonel, and a cutthroat Italian Communist who would rather see postwar Sicily in the hands of his comrades than the Mafia. Shaber brews a delightful mix of feminine wiles (long before women's liberation) and real-life history that will keep readers turning the pages.
