Louise’s Lies

Shaber’s winning sixth WWII mystery (after 2015’s Louise’s Chance) is her best yet. One subfreezing December night in 1943, government employee Louise Pearlie and her friend Joe Prager, who doesn’t know she works for the OSS, decide to go for a drink after seeing a movie at a Washington, D.C., theater. They choose the Baron Steuben Inn, where a customer searching for whiskey discovers a dead man, soaked in blood, behind the bar. In the subsequent police investigation, which is led by an acquaintance of Louise, Det. Sgt. Harvey Royal, Louise must keep the nature of her work secret. Each of the suspects—limited to the patrons of the Steuben Inn that night—has a lot to hide. No one wants to admit to being even tangentially involved with the former German embassy, which is just around the corner from the inn. Shaber does a fine job portraying the plight of alien residents in wartime Washington, besides conveying the hectic atmosphere of a city whose resources are stretched to the limit by an influx of new workers. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (Dec.)