Book Review - Fear Itself

Fear Itself

By: Andrew Rosenheim
Publisher: Overlook Press
Publishing Date: November 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4683-0072-7
Reviewed by: Mary Lignor
Review Date: August 14, 2012

This first novel of a new series concerns the beginnings of the war in Europe.

A young American Special Agent with the FBI, Jimmy Nessheim is trying to come to the attention of the head of the FBI and make a name for himself. Jimmy is from the Midwest and was a football star until he was hurt and could no longer play the game. Without telling his prospective employers about his handicapped knees, Jimmy got a job in the FBI, an agency that did not yet have the name recognition that it would eventually. The Bureau didn’t become really famous until they went after the home-grown mobsters that were robbing banks across the country. Their entry into the trials and tribulations of the Great Depression was the thing to think about at this time. Europe was on it’s way to war when Jimmy was given the assignment to get himself into an American run organization called the “Bund,” a pro-Nazi organization in the USA. The Bund’s chief to-do list was to stop President Roosevelt’s efforts to help the allies in Europe to deliberately damage the work that Hitler was doing to become King of the World.

Jimmy finally realizes that the Bund will take no prisoners and finds people plotting at the highest level of Washington’s society to ruin Roosevelt’s chances of a third term in office even to the point of planning his assassination.

Reading about the planning of an assassination of a prominent figure that you know was not assassinated is quite interesting. While it has been done many times before, this time the reader finds it hard to believe that it did not happen. This is a fascinating read as it is about an America that is struggling to keep out of the war and the suspense that surrounds the planning to kill a world leader will keep readers up nights trying to figure it all out.

Quill Says: Since this is a planned trilogy and this book only takes us to the summer of 1940, when America has not yet entered the hostilities, it keeps the reader interested. The book is very well researched and well written and I’m looking forward to Book 2.