Book Review: Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

MOTHER DAUGHTER TRAITOR SPY by Susan Elia MacNeal is an amazing historical fiction standalone based on true characters and events featuring a mother and daughter duo in pre-WWII California. This is the first book by this author I have read and I could not put it down.

Veronica Grace has just graduated from college and finds herself black balled from her hoped for career in journalism in NYC. Her mother, Violet “VI” is the widow of a Navy commander and with the encouragement of Violet’s brother, they set out for a new start for both in Los Angeles, California. With no experience, Veronica is offered a job typing and discovers she is working an anti-Semitic propogandist couple.

Horrified, Veronica and Vi try to alert the authorities, but no one seems to care. The police and FBI have turned them away, so Vi calls an old friend of her late husband still in the Navy. He connects them with Ari Lewis who is an anti-Nazi spymaster. With both Vi and Veronica being of German descent and blonde haired blue eyed, they go undercover and are accepted into the heart of the Nazi conspiracy community in Los Angeles, but the deeper they go and the more they uncover, any suspicion could cost them their lives.

This book grabbed me right from the start and even though it is historical fiction it is based on a real mother daughter duo and many of the key characters are also true to historical events with just name changes. The plot is fast-paced and full of suspense. Veronica and Vi started out with just snippets of information gleaned from their new acquaintances, but the more they are trusted and pulled into the intrigue the danger increases exponentially. The author’s descriptions made me feel like I was in Los Angeles pre-WWII, and she was able to demonstrate the contrast between the sunny light feel of the city vs. the dark and dangerous underbelly of the Nazi conspiracy. This story also seems to parallel so much occurring in our news and politics today and I can only hope more people are like Veronica and Vi.

I highly recommend this historical fiction story and I will be checking out more of this author’s previous books.

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About the Author

MOTHER DAUGHTER TRAITOR SPY, a stand alone novel, is coming out from Penguin Random House on September 20, 2022. THE HOLLYWOOD SPY (Maggie Hope #10) was published in hardcover on July 6, 2021 will come out in paperback in August 2020. The Maggie Hope series will continue, with a new title coming out in 2023.

Susan Elia MacNeal is the author of The New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today-bestselling Maggie Hope mystery series, starting with the Edgar Award-nominated and Barry Award-winning MR. CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY, which is now in its 23rd printing.

Her books include: MR. CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY, PRINCESS ELIZABETH’S SPY, HIS MAJESTY’S HOPE, THE PRIME MINISTER’S SECRET AGENT, MRS. ROOSEVELT’S CONFIDANTE, THE QUEEN’S ACCOMPLICE, THE PARIS SPY, THE PRISONER IN THE CASTLE, THE KING’S JUSTICE, and THE HOLLYWOOD SPY. The Maggie Hope novels have been nominated for the Edgar, the Macavity, the ITW Thriller, the Barry, the Dilys, the Sue Federer Historical Fiction, and the Bruce Alexander Historical Fiction awards. The Maggie Hope series is sold world-wide in English, and has also been translated into Czech, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Turkish,Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Bulgarian and is also available in large print and audio. The film and television rights to the series are currently with Warner Bros.

Susan graduated from Nardin Academy in Buffalo New York, and cum laude and with honors in English from Wellesley College. She cross-registered for courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Harvard University. Her first job was as the assistant to novelist John Irving in Vermont. She then worked as an editorial assistant at Random House, assistant editor at Viking Penguin, and associate editor and staff writer at Dance Magazine in New York City. As a freelance writer, she wrote two non-fiction books and for the publications of New York City Ballet.

Susan is married and lives with her husband, Noel MacNeal, a television performer, writer and director, and their son in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

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