Mother Daughter Traitor Spy - Susan Elia MacNeal

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy - Susan Elia MacNeal

She read

Release date: Sept. 20, 2022

 Based on true events and true people, this historical fiction tells the story of a mother and daughter transported from Brooklyn to California who become spies in  the American Nazi movement in 1940.  Veronica is a would be journalist who infiltrates the American Bund; Vi a housewife who attaches herself to the America First Committee.  The book chronicles the many seditious plots of the Nazi sympathizers in Southern California and the women’s role in foiling some of them. 

The writing is a bit simplistic, but it tells an important story.  MacNeal’s rich descriptions of locations and fashions vividly evoke a by gone era. This was an engrossing read; I stayed up late to finish it because I couldn’t put it down.  

There is so much here that parallels our present time. That the FBI initially was more concerned about  Communists than Nazis really resonated with me.  It seems so often now we hear politicians calling groups “communists” or “socialists” to scare people, but they do not call out the neo Nazis or white nationalists.

Veronica and Vi are shocked by a group of Americans plotting treason against their own government; the group’s plan is to take it over if Roosevelt is elected and make the US a Christian nation. They want to relegate women to a position where their entire world is husband, family, children, home.  After what we have seen in this country in the last six years, it is not so much shocking as part of our newsfeeds. 

In the past few years, I have read quite a few novels that center around the rise of Nazi Germany.  I think it is no coincidence that so many have been written and look at them as cautionary tales for our time.  Especially when we now see Nationalism as a term used to camouflage anti democracy movements with hate and prejudice as their base.  As one of the characters says, we must “stop the spread of lies that feed their fears.“

As incredulous as some of the heinous activities of the fifth column in this book might seem, reading the author’s notes validates their authenticity.  

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