Beat the Devils

Joseph McCarthy is the U.S. president in Weiss’s misfire of a debut, set in an alternative 1950s America. Agents of the House Un-American Activities Committee (called Hueys) spread fear wherever they go, and Humphrey Bogart, who speaks like his screen gangster persona, is McCarthy’s key propaganda tool in fighting communism, starring in such films as It Came from Planet Communist. Det. Morris Baker of the LAPD is called to a crime scene where two men have been fatally shot: out-of-work movie director John Huston and Walter Cronkite, “a young CBS reporter whose career was nothing special.” In Cronkite’s clenched fist, Baker finds a slip of paper with the words “Beat the Devils” and “Baker.” When two overbearing Hueys muscle in on the case, Baker decides to investigate on his own. He ends up being wooed by a possible Russian spy, facing off with Wernher von Braun, and uncovering at least two major conspiracies. Weiss loosely cobbles together these plot elements and many more in a repetitive, overly long narrative filled with superficial characterizations of people who are often just targets for quick cheap shots. An imaginative premise can’t save this one. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)