The Fifth Column

July 29, 2019
In the powerful first chapter of this ambitious, if flawed, thriller from bestseller Gross (Button Man), washed-out, alcoholic Columbia graduate student Charles Mossman is drinking in a Manhattan bar, mourning his twin brother, recently killed fighting the fascists in Spain. It’s 1939, and Mossman, who’s Jewish, is taunted by Nazi sympathizers who attended a huge pro-Hitler rally at Madison Square Garden earlier that evening. In the ensuing fight, Mossman ends up accidentally killing an innocent bystander. In 1941, after serving his manslaughter sentence, Mossman returns home to his wife and their six-year-old daughter, Emma, who’s spending a lot of time with their neighbors, the Bauers, an affable Swiss couple. After hearing from Emma that she’s heard the ostensibly anti-Nazi Bauers praise Nazi policies
, he grows suspicious about their loyalties and begins some clumsy amateur sleuthing. The early revelation that the Bauers are part of a fifth column operating within the U.S. undercuts the suspense. Contrived plot developments don’t help. Nonetheless, readers will root for Mossman in his heroic efforts to thwart the villains. 100,000-copy announced first printing; author tour. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

August 1, 2019
At one point in this fine adventure, set in the 1940s, someone observes that Alfred Hitchcock would surely have some fun with this story. Well, Hitch did. Parts of it seem like Notorious, others recall Foreign Correspondent, and, oh yes, there's some North by Northwest in there, too. The hero is an everyday bloke doing his best in the edgy world of 1941. Hitler's regime has turned savage. Austria has been annexed, Poland invaded, hell is raining on London daily. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Charles Mossman is attempting to reconnect with his beloved six-year-old daughter, Emma, after a separation from his wife. During his visits to his wife's Yorkville apartment, Mossman meets the charming, middle-age Swiss couple down the hall. But then Mossman hears something and notices a coded strip of paper in the Swiss couple's kitchen. Attempts to alert the authorities are rebuffed, and he becomes a target of this Nazi conspiracy. Gross has created a thriller that works like a piece of fine machinery. Everything makes a point, there are no wasted moments, no striving for literature. Just a straight-ahead thriller, and a very good one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2019

In 1941 New York, Charles Mossman has done time for an ill-considered bar fight and is now allowed to spend only late afternoons with his daughter. He's increasingly suspicious of the elderly Swiss couple living next door, who are teaching his daughter German and might just be part of a Nazi spy ring. Gross has multiple best sellers of his own (e.g., No Way Back), plus five No. 1 New York Times best sellers with James Patterson.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.