Beat the Devils

An inventive, page-turning crime thriller set in an alternate United States during the height of the Red Scare--with shocking parallels to America in the 2020s.

USA, 1958. President Joseph McCarthy sits in the White House, elected on a wave of populist xenophobia and barely‑concealed anti‑Semitism. The country is in the firm grip of McCarthy's Hueys, a secret police force evolved from the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. Hollywood's sparkling vision of the American dream has been suppressed; its remaining talents forced to turn out endless anti‑communist propaganda.

LAPD detective Morris Baker--a Holocaust survivor who drowns his fractured memories of the unspeakable in schnapps and work--is called to the scene of a horrific double‑homicide. The victims are John Huston, a once‑promising but now forgotten film director, and an up‑and‑coming young journalist named Walter Cronkite. Clutched in the hand of one of the dead men is a cryptic note containing the phrase "beat the devils" followed by a single name: Baker. Did the two men die in a murder‑suicide, as the Hueys are quick to conclude, or were they murdered in a coverup designed to protect--or even set in motion--a secret plot connected to Baker's past?

In a country where terror grows stronger by the day, and paranoia rises unchecked, Baker is determined to find justice for two men who raised their voices in a time when free speech comes at the ultimate cost. In the course of his investigation, Baker stumbles into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the halls of power and uncover a secret that could destroy the City of Angels--and the American ideal itself.