The Fifth Column

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[em] [/em], 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. [em]100,000-copy announced first printing; author tour. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Sept.) [/em]