UNDER THE PAPER MOON

World War II may be over, but its wounds are far from healed.

While her father, a wealthy Los Angeles aircraft manufacturer, thought she was working as a translator in London, Evelyn Bishop was actually an agent for the Office of Strategic Services in occupied France. Now, in 1948, her restless nature leads her to open an office as a private investigator catering to the women of LA, like the French wife of munitions and tank manufacturer George Palmer. On a nightclub date with her lifelong friend James Hughes, she’s watching Palmer, a friend of her father, whose wife suspects he’s having an affair. Palmer ends his meeting with gangster Mickey Cohen’s bookkeeper and soon departs with pretty young waitress Katie Pierce. Following them out, Evelyn runs into Nick Gallagher, who’s working security for Palmer. Nick was Evelyn’s boss at OSS and the love of her life, and she can’t forgive him for keeping her out of postwar OSS with no explanation. And there’s a good reason he hasn’t told her why. When Evelyn was sent to blow up an ammo dump, she attempted to free her brother, Matthew, and the other prisoners in a nearby POW camp. Matthew was killed during the escape, and Nick found crates from her father’s company inside, something he’s kept hidden from Evelyn ever since. When Palmer’s shot dead in Katie’s apartment, Evelyn and Nick reluctantly band together to discover a motive and catch the killer. All roads lead back to the war, and their dangerous mission raises the distinct possibility that Palmer and her father were traitors.

An exciting character-driven combination of mystery, thriller, and love stories, with plenty of twists in all three.