Review of "Midnight Patriots: An Einstein-Chaplin Thriller" by Paul Levine

  

 

This is the second book in the Einstein-Chaplin thriller series, featuring real-life friends Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. The novels contain real historical characters and include actual historical occurrences. However, they're stories with author's discretion.


Charlie Chaplin (left) and Albert Einstein

In the first book, Midnight Burning, pro-fascist William Pelley plans 'Operation Hollywood' to kill the most influential Jews in Tinseltown, starting with Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin (Chaplin isn't Jewish but calls himself a son of Abraham).

In this follow-up novel, the Nazis again have nefarious plans for Chaplin and Einstein. The book can be read as a standalone, but why miss out on the fun; start with book one.

*****

It's November 1940, Germany occupies much of Europe and the Luftwaffe is bombing England to smithereens. Charlie Chaplin's movie, 'The Great Dictator', which portrays German Führer Adolf Hitler as a blustering buffoon with cowardly and effeminate mannerisms, is a smash success in America.



Not so much in Germany. Hitler is infuriated by Chaplin's mockery, and the Schutzstaffel (SS) dispatches an assassin called Schmidt to kill the movie maker.



At the same time, spy master Fritz Duquesne, who works for the the Abwehr (German counterintelligence agency), has an extensive spy network in the United States. Duquesne plans to kidnap Albert Einstein, take him to Germany, and force him to help the Nazis make an atomic bomb.



The SS and Abwehr are rival organizations, both trying to gain favor with the Führer, and the tension between Schmidt and Duquesne has unexpected repercussions.

In the meantime, General George Strong, a U.S army intelligence officer, is pursuing Nazi spies, protecting Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein, and trying to convince Einstein to help the American effort to develop an atomic bomb. Einstein is on the horns of a dilemma. He warned President Roosevelt that Germany is making a bomb, and advised FDR that America better make one first. On the other hand, Einstein is a committed pacifist, and doesn't want to HELP make the bomb.



Jewish gangster Mickey Cohen, newly married to LaVonne Weaver, also takes it upon himself to protect Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin.



While he's at it, Cohen asks Einstein to make his newlywed bride LaVonne smart.



Mickey says, "[LaVonne] ain't had much schooling, unless you count the school of hard knocks. Maybe you can teach her some five-dollar words. Polish her to shine like my alligator wingtips." Cohen goes on, "Wouldn't hurt me none to learn a few fancy words, too, Professor." 

Cohen's right, and his language problems provide some laughs. For instance:

🔴 Einstein tries to deflect Mickey from shooting someone who had a hard childhood, and Mickey says, "I know what you're doing, Professor. Psychotic warfare." [Psychological warfare.]

🔴 Mickey tells a police officer, "Ain't gonna say a word to no more Nazis. I'm going completely incom-avocado." [Incommunicado.]

🔴 A Princeton student who's a Nazi sympathizer brags, "I was a coxswain on our mixed pairs in the '36 Olympics. The German's love of country was invigorating." Cohen watches the smirky blond wiseacre. He doesn't know a coxswain from a cockroach, but if he runs into this punk, he'll slap him silly.



While the U.S. army and Mickey Cohen are working to protect Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover is suspicious of both men. He thinks Chaplin is morally questionable, and he believes Einstein is a communist sympathizer.



Thus Hoover dispatches two FBI agents - Brian Sullivan and Millie Vazquez - to follow Einstein, monitor his activities, and keep him away from the American nuclear program.



After much drama with guns, a cross-bow, surveillance operations, car chases, captured Nazi agents and more, the key characters find themselves on the Santa Fe Super Chief, a luxury train from Chicago to Los Angeles.



The people aboard include:

🔴 Albert Einstein: The physicist is traveling for scientific and public engagements; though Einstein's a pacifist, he knows America will have to go to war sooner or later.

🔴 Fritz Duquesne: The Abwehr spymaster is traveling undercover; he has an elaborate plan to kidnap Einstein along the way.

🔴 Brian Sullivan and Millie Vazquez: The FBI agents are undercover as well, posing as husband and wife; they're keeping an eye on Einstein, to see if he meets up with communists.

🔴 Charlie Chaplin: the movie mogul is returning to Hollywood after promoting The Great Dictator; he gets friendly with fellow passenger Lena Horne (a rising star at this time) along the way.



🔴 Mickey Cohen: the mobster is on his honeymoon trip with LaVonne; Mickey is determined to keep Einstein and Chaplin safe.

🔴 Charles Lindbergh: the aviator, an outspoken Nazi sympathizer, is traveling to give speeches and promote his 'America First' agenda. One of Lindbergh's many mistresses in on board also.



🔴 J. Robert Oppenheimer: the scientist is returning to Berkeley, where he's a professor involved in nuclear research; Oppenheimer's new wife Kitty, who was once a member of America's communist party, is on the train as well.



The train trip makes up a good portion of the book, and provides much of the novel's forward motion as people's motives and plans are exposed.

For me, this book doesn't have the pizzazz of Midnight Burning The story is more 'talk' than excitement: Einstein and Chaplin try to convince Lindbergh of the error of his isolationist/pro-Nazi stance; J. Edgar fumes about communists; military folk talk about making a bomb. Perhaps because the book is set in 1940, things are more in the planning than the doing stage.

Still, it's entertaining to see Charlie Chaplin climb out a 43rd floor window in his boxer shorts, to avoid being shot for canoodling with Marion Davies - the mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst; and the spy vs. spy drama is rather exciting too.


Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst

All in all, I'd recommend the book to fans of historical mysteries.

I had the digital book and the audiobook, narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner, who does a fine job.

Thanks to Netgalley, Paul Levine, Herald Square and Brilliance Audio for ARCs of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Review of "Cat on a Hot Tin Woof: A Chet and Bernie Mystery" by Spencer Quinn

 

  

In this 16th book in the 'Chet and Bernie' series, the detective team searches for a missing 'internet famous' cat. The book works fine as a standalone.

In the Chet and Bernie stories, Bernie Little and his hundred-plus pound dog Chet are partners in the Little Detective Agency in Arizona.



Bernie is a West Point graduate, military hero, former police officer, and good at his PI job. Sartorially, Bernie is a fan of Hawaiian shirts, which are loose enough to hide a gun when Bernie's carrying.



Bernie is also the divorced father of 7-year-old Charlie, who's thrilled to have a detective for a dad.



Chet is Bernie's invaluable partner, who's always ready to clamp his jaw on perps and drag them off by the pants.



The books are narrated by Chet, whose somewhat limited vocabulary, unfamiliarity with idioms, and doggie logic set the stage for plenty of smiles.

*****

As the story opens, Bernie and Chet are at Nixon's Championship Autobody, having a bullet extracted from Bernie's vintage Porsche. As Bernie and Nixon talk about the black and white Porsche being too conspicuous for a private investigator.....



.....teenage Bitty Pond and her mother Evelyn Pond arrive at Nixon's Championship Autobody to pick up their car.



Next thing you know, the Little Detective Agency is being hired for a job.



It seems Bitty's cat 'Miss Kitty' - who has over six million followers on the Slickety app - is missing. Not only does Bittty loves her feline, but Miss Kitty brings in $75,000 a month from sponsors, and the Pond ladies need the money.



One of Bernie's first questions to Bitty and Evelyn is 'who has a key to the house', and Bernie and Chet are soon off to interview Phillips Pond (Phil), Evelyn's ex-husband and Bitty's father. Phil and his girlfriend Yolanda live out in the desert, in a mobile home up on blocks....



.....and as Chet reports, there's a chain-link pen around the back with the biggest pig Chet's ever seen, "an enormous pink and black dude busy with a watermelon rind."



In any case, Phil mistakes Bernie for a bill collector, Yolanda threatens him with a shotgun, and the couple claim to know nothing about Miss Kitty's disappearance. They behave squirrelly though, and Bernie thinks they know more than they're saying.



Later, when Bernie and Chet return to re-interview Phil and Yolanda, Phil is dead in the kitchen, Yolanda is gone, and Señor Piggy (as Chet calls him) has burrowed out of his pen and run off. Bernie and Chet hurry off to rescue Señor Piggy from coyotes, and when they bring Señor Piggy back, Phil's body has disappeared.

Before long there's another murder, and Chet deals with a stalker watching Bitty and Evelyn. As Bernie and Chet continue to investigate, they meet a couple of cowgirls who own 'Two Fillies Ranch', and run into rude bikers who impel Bernie to use his famous uppercut when they call Chet a fleabag.



In his personal life, Bernie does a favor for his ex-wife Leda; picks up his son Charlie from Rocketry Club; and spends time with his fiancée Weatherly - a sergeant with the Valley PD. Chet describes all this in detail, though he's amusingly vague about the mischief he's caused during these interactions.



Bernie also hears from a Hollywood agent called Manny Ax, who wants to make a Bernie and Chet PI movie. To smooth the way, Manny sends an enormous wicker basket overflowing with flowers, Bernie's favorite bourbon, and Beef Jerky Heavenlies, made by Doggie Deluxe, Hollywood's finest canine emporium. Bernie's not on board with the movie idea, and asks Chet, "What are we going to do? Send it back?"



Chet is gobsmacked and says, "Had I heard right? Send it back? The flowers, maybe - in fact why not? If it would make Bernie happy we could do without the flowers. Would it help if I peed on them this very second? Happy to. I'm a a team player don't forget. As for the bourbon, I supposed that was up to him, water being my drink. But those Beef Jerky Heavenlies? No way."

There's plenty of danger and adventure before Bernie and Chet solve the case of the missing cat. The climax is somewhat abrupt, but I enjoyed the book, especially Chet's narration. I'll include a couple of examples of Chet's amusing remarks.

Talking about Bernie's cars, Chet says, "Our ride's a Porsche, but not shiny new. Far from it! We've had several Porsches in my career, for sure more than two, which is where I stop when it comes to numbers, but all of them - including the brown one with yellow doors that went off a cliff and the one with martini glass decals that got blown up - were old."



Chet observes, "Bernie is brilliant of course, but - and I mean this in the nicest way - he's not at his most brilliant brilliance when it comes to finances. Perhaps later I'll get into our Hawaiian pants business and even the tin futures play, ruined by an earthquake."



With this in mind, when Bernie and Chet eat at Julio Chan's Tex-Mex Hunan Pagoda, where the sign over the door is a sombrero made of chopsticks, Chet hears Bernie offer Julio a loan. Chet says, "As for what they were talking about....Something about a loan from us? How would that make sense? Hadn't Ms. Mendez - out bank manager and a woman of the no-nonsense type - given Bernie a stern talking to on this very subject?"



As always, this is a fun mystery, a must-read for Chet and Bernie fans.

Thanks to Netgalley, Spencer Quinn, and Minotaur for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Review of "Yesteryear: A Novel" (GMA's choice for Book of the Month for April, 2026) by Caro Claire Burke

  

This book was the Good Morning America (GMA) choice for April, 2026.

*****

Right up front, Natalie Heller Mills will tell you she's a good Christian woman. (And tell you and tell you and tell you.)



In Natalie's view, this means things like:

She would be a mother, be a wife, and keep the household clean, and not forget to smile. In other words, "the mother every woman wanted to be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to."

She would live on a farm, where she would "bake another loaf of bread, and then maybe wash the floors, and then start preparations for dinner, and then scatter more feed across the [chicken] coop, and then check the chickens' feet and feathers for any sort of disease...", etc.

She would be a crisis manager for her good Christian husband.

She would pooh pooh her luxuries to other people.

She would homeschool her children, because in public school they teach children that "being a Christian is a terrible thing; that gender is a construct and that marriage is some destructive force; they teach little White children to feel guilty about the fact that our country used to have slaves..." and so on.

She would never ever get a divorce. In the world Natalie comes from, divorce leads to a lifetime of destitution and misery followed by an eternity in hell. "You didn't leave your husband if he slapped you in the face, or had an affair, or set you up on a weekly allowance so sparse that you snapped at your children when they spilled a glass of milk, and you certainly didn't leave your husband if he was just some dumb rich guy." Which, unfortunately, Natalie's husband is.

*****

As a freshman at Harvard, Natalie meets upperclassman Caleb Mills (who's only at Harvard because he's a legacy), and they marry quickly.



Caleb comes from a wealthy, conservative family, and he has no skills, no ambition, no job....and no intention of getting one.



After a time, Natalie gets an inspiration. She and Caleb will live on an Idaho farm named Yesteryear Ranch, where they can raise their children and practice good Christian values. As a bonus, Caleb can think he's a farmer.



Caleb's father Doug Mills, a Republican senator who's planning to run for President, helps finance the farm venture, largely because a lazybones son like Caleb would look bad to the public. Doug stipulates, though, that Natalie and Caleb must have lots of babies.



Almost by chance, Yesteryear Ranch becomes a social media sensation, with Natalie as the 'tradwife' (traditional wife) and Caleb working the farm. Natalie's Instagram posts show a conservative rural family, with Natalie baking bread; sharing her cooking tips; demonstrating recipes; touting the benefits of raw milk; churning milk to make butter; taking care of the children; saying 'good morning ladies' to the chickens before she gathers the eggs; and so on.



The social media posts have Caleb milking a cow; driving a John Deere tractor in the pasture; staying up all night with a laboring sow; growing organic vegetables; selling meat, cheese and organic exotic vegetables at the farmer's market; the whole shebang.



Yesteryear Ranch is a real moneymaker. Natalie hawks all manner of merchandise, like sweatshirts, snow globes, and bread-making kits, with the 'Made in China' labels removed of course.



However, Yesterday Ranch is COMPLETELY PHONY. The modern appliances are cunningly hidden away; there are two nannies/teachers for Natalie and Caleb's large brood of children; the youngsters are homeschooled using a 'Christian curriculum'; there are ranch hands doing all the real farmwork; the pesticides and herbicides are kept out of sight; and (of course) all the employees are NEVER in Natalie's Instagram posts.





In addition, there's a media-savvy 21-year-old producer called Shannon, who coordinates all the photo shoots.



Like any social media sensation, Natalie has followers who love her, and people who hate her. And Natalie IS TERRIFIED of being exposed as a phony. When Natalie runs into an old acquaintance named Vanessa at Target, Natalie immediately gets paranoid.



For no good reason, Natalie thinks, "I knew this woman got embarrassingly drunk at family parties and pulled up my Instagram page, showing anyone stupid enough to walk past that she knew this woman personally...before launching into some recycled slur of a speech about how all traditional people are idiots, all religious people are idiots, all people who choose to live a different lifestyle than hers are idiots, when what she really wanted to say was 'I am so nauseatingly jealous of this woman I used to know that I think it might actually kill me.' Natalie claims to think of herself as a woman of principles; defined by principles, but it's clear she protests too much.



In any case, a crisis erupts at Yesteryear Ranch when Natalie's producer Shannon claims Caleb sexually assaulted her. Natalie consults God; tries to think of ways to brush the incident under the carpet; and generally gets frazzled.

The next thing Natalie knows, she wakes up in 1855, shivering under a stiff thin quilt. Her phone isn't on the bedside table; the frigid, knotted. lumpy floor isn't her Brazilian-imported hardwood; there are no overhead lights in the kitchen, and the (formerly nonfunctional) fireplace is the only light in the room.



Natalie can't take it in: This is her house, but it isn't her house; these are her children, but they aren't her children; Caleb is her husband, but he isn't her husband. It's like the Twilight Zone. For a time, Natalie thinks it's a trick: a reality show in which she's being secretly filmed. But the situation goes on; things get worse; and Natalie's life continues in the past.

Of course the reader speculates about what's going on, and some clues pop up. To say more would be a spoiler.

I may be an outlier, but I have problems with this book. Natalie SEEMS to be sincere in her devout Christian beliefs, but her sermonizing becomes intolerable and she has no empathy. For instance, Natalie's sister Abigail is married to Bryce, a pimple-faced corn dog of a man with a bad temper, and they have four children with a fifth on the way. Natalie knows Bryce is mean, dumb, drinks too much, calls Abigail names in front of the children, hits her, is lazy, has never done anything with his shop, and is and has always been a loser. But when Abigail tells Natalie she's divorcing Bryce, Natalie is horrified.



Natalie gets hot under the collar and tells Abigail, "You will be a single mother of five living on food stamps...Have you thought about where you'll live?...Do you know what it takes to apply for an apartment?...Do you honestly think the rules don't apply to you? That you can just waltz away from your responsibilities completely unscathed? Bryce will be remarried within a year and then he and his new bride will fight for the children just to spite you...He'll say you're a cruel mother, a drunk, and the judge will agree with him, and before long you'll be seeing your children every other Saturday"....and on and on. Not one nice word or offer of sympathy! In fact there's no one to root for in this novel, except Natalie and Caleb's daughter Mary, who has a lot to deal with.



In the final analysis, I was intrigued by the 'going back to 1855 premise' and was curious to find out what happened at the climax. That said, I didn't find the story believable and wouldn't choose it for book of the month.

Thanks to Netgalley, Caro Claire Burke, and Knopf for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 3 stars