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Los
Angeles, September 1941.
With the Nazis occupying
Europe, and their armies now halfway across Russia,
America hovers on the brink of war. Tensions are also
rising in the Far East, and in California fears grow of
a Pacific Coast invasion. There is mounting anxiety
about the loyalty of the state’s own Japanese
population.
But back in Washington D.C.,
Director J. Edgar Hoover is more concerned about
promoting the image of the FBI than about preparing for
war, and dispatches Special Agent Nessheim to Hollywood
to help make pro-FBI movies.
Then in a
clandestine meeting with Nessheim’s boss, Harry Guttman,
a State Department official reveals that he has been
asked by the Russians to pass on classified information.
Guttman uncovers a California connection to this
espionage attempt, and assigns Nessheim to
investigate.
Nessheim’s mission is complicated by
the disappearance of his key informant, Billy Osaka.
Other people are looking for Osaka too. The search for
him takes Nessheim to a studio head’s mansion in Beverly
Hills, a high-class gambling club, LA’s Little Tokyo,
and the Santa Barbara ranch of wealthy Communist
sympathisers. With his own life under threat, Nessheim
discovers a deadly conspiracy designed to push America
into the War.
Set in the last remaining months of
peace, The Informant is a gripping thriller, immersed in
the history it vividly depicts of a country poised
between great power... and great danger.
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