Fear Itself: A Novel - Hardcover

Rosenheim, Andrew

3.32

131 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1468300725 ISBN 13: 9781468300727

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2012

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Jimmy Nessheim, a young Special Agent in the fledgling FBI, is assigned to infiltrate a new German–American organization known as the Bund. Ardently pro-Nazi, the Bund is conspiring to sabotage American efforts against Adolf Hitler. But as Nessheim’s investigation takes him into the very heart of the Bund, it becomes increasingly clear that something far more sinister is at work, something that seems to lead directly to the White House. Drawn into the center of Washington’s high society, Nessheim finds himself caught up in a web of political intrigue and secret lives. But as he moves closer to the truth, an even more lethal plot emerges, one that could rewrite history. With sharp wit and a keen eye for period details, Rosenheim fully immerses the reader in Depression-era America. He seamlessly weaves into the narrative larger-than-life figures such as J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson, and Lucy Mercer Rutherford, as well as historical events like the 1939 pro-Nazi rally held at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The first in a series chronicling Agent Nessheim’s adventures throughout the war, Fear Itself establishes Andrew Rosenheim as a spectacular new talent.

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About the Author:

Andrew Rosenheim is the author of Fear Itself and The Little Tokyo Informant, also available from Overlook. He grew up in Chicago and in a small town in Michigan, and then went on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1977. For many years he worked for Penguin Books and Oxford University Press. He is now a full-time writer.

From Booklist:

Young FBI agent Jimmy Nessheim is assigned to go undercover in the German American Bund in 1936. The assignment ignores J. Edgar Hoover’s narrow focus on Communists, labor unions, and jazz musicians and violates Hoover’s edict that FBI agents do not work undercover. Harry Guttman, the Jewish FBI agent who makes the assignment, knows he’s risking his career and possibly Nessheim’s life. But Nessheim’s time in the Bund helps Guttman piece together a serious Nazi threat to the life of Franklin Roosevelt, which leads to another undercover assignment for Nessheim, this time in the White House. This is the first novel in a series projected to cover 1936 through World War II, and Rosenheim paints a disturbingly vivid portrait of the U.S. riven by the Great Depression, political conflicts, and concerns about looming war in Europe. The rumpled, intelligent Guttman is a compelling character who shrugs off the pervasive anti-Semitism he encounters in his fellow FBI agents. The Nazi plot is convoluted but effectively maintains tension, and Rosenheim’s picture of pre-WWII America is riveting. --Thomas Gaughan

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