Louise’s Chance

Set in late 1943, Shaber’s suspenseful fifth WWII mystery (after 2014’s Louise’s Blunder) takes Louise Pearlie, who’s been working as a clerk for the OSS in Washington, D.C., to Fort Meade in Maryland, where she gets a more exciting job with Psychological Warfare Operations—helping recruit German POWs for an American black-propaganda campaign behind enemy lines. On arrival, Louise meets fast-talking Alice Osborne, her new supervisor, and Merle Ellison, a German-speaking Texan and government forger. The three learn that Rolf Muntz and Hurst Aach, two detainees from the same address in the Sudetenland, went overboard in transit across the Atlantic. The men apparently committed suicide, but, as the POW interviews get underway, Louise and company suspect what happened to Muntz and Aach is not so clear-cut. As usual, Shaber provides interesting period details, such as the enmity the Italian prisoners bear for the German prisoners in the aftermath of the German occupation of Italy. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (Jan.)