Looking for Garbo

Miller’s debut blends history and melodrama with mixed results. In 2000, documentary filmmaker James Main is obsessively researching the life of legendary screen goddess Greta Garbo when he encounters an old man, Seth Moseley, who has a doozy of a yarn about Garbo’s secret scheme to prevent WWII by assassinating Adolf Hitler. Flash back to 1939; Seth, then a scrappy young reporter eager to pay off some gambling debts, stows away on the ocean liner Athenia, headed from New York to England, to get a story about the elusive Garbo, who’s aboard. He soon discovers that the ship is full of disguised conspirators and is being stalked by a German U-boat. When war in Europe breaks out while the ship is in mid-journey, Seth’s mission becomes a lot more complicated. Neither Seth’s adventures nor James’s emotional struggles are especially convincing, but readers who appreciate the charm and daffiness of old pulp magazines may have fun. (Apr.)