December ’41
In the sunny wonderland of Hollywood, a German assassin begins a thousand-mile-long journey to take out America before it can enter the war against Germany. His target? President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree. William Martin’s propulsive thriller lays the tracks for an epic manhunt that will dictate the future of the nation.
In the searing days immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation is on edge, and so is FBI agent Frank Carter. Tasked with rooting out German sympathizers plotting mischief against America, Carter gets intelligence from Hollywood script reader Kevin Cusack, who poses as a Nazi sympathizer in the Los Angeles German Bund organization. Cusack, deflated by his prospects and stung by a recent jilting, quits his job to return East on the iconic Super Chief train leaving L.A.
On the same train is Martin Browning, a calculating and highly skilled assassin heading to Washington, D.C., to kill the president, having already killed several people in L.A. unlucky enough to know too much. A man of many aliases and backstories, Browning has the perfect cover in Vivian Hopewell, an aspiring actress giving up on a dream. For the price of a free ticket back home, Hopewell agrees to pretend they are husband and wife, not certain of Browning’s intent but too intrigued by his kindness to care. When their paths cross on the Super Chief, and secrets begin to leak, one more murder escalates the hunt for the mysterious Browning, while another man makes a desperate journey to clear his name.
Reviving the best of L.A. noir and the heyday of Hollywood with slick dialogue, clever comebacks, and dogged detective work, December ’41 is a bullet train of thrills speeding to an unforgettable conclusion.
