Shaina SteinbergRecensioni

Under the Paper Moon by Shaina Steinberg

As I began to read, I felt I had stepped into a black and white “noir movie” with a Bogart-Bacall vibe. The book flips from 1948 back to 1942 chapter by chapter until the two timelines merge and the story continues. I have to admit that at first I had mixed feelings about the story but the more I read, the more I wanted to read. I had to know how it would end.

What I liked:
* Evelyn Bishop: wealthy, privileged, raised in Los Angeles, tomboy, lost her mother early, loves her family, is on a mission to find her POW brother when she joins the Office of Strategic Services, multi-lingual, lethal, intelligent, loves deeply, private investigator, adrift at the end of WWII
* Nick Gallagher: poor as a child, abusive parents, abandoned as a preteen, survived on the streets, grew up in Los Angeles, always dreamed of one day having loving home and family, in charge of the OSS team, talkative, loves deeply, made a decision that upset his life, adrift at the end of WWII
* Carl Santos: on Nick & Evelyn’s team, good friend, skilled, became a detective for LAPD when he left the army
* The plot, pacing, setting, mood, era, and writing of this story
* The glimpse into WWII behind enemy lines
* That I came to feel I knew the characters and could like them even with their flaws…well…most of them anyway
* That I understood and believed in the strength of the love Evelyn had for both men in her life and how she finally determined which man was her forever
* How all the threads came together and left me feeling okay at the end
* Having grown up in Los Angeles, I found myself enjoying revisiting places I had been
* All of it really except…

What I didn’t like:
* Who and what I was meant not to like
* Drexler and his female colleague and the way they corrupted the people they did
* Thinking about how loving someone can sometimes make good people make bad choices

Did I like this book? Yes
Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars½

Under the Paper Moon by Shaina Steinberg
Historical fiction, mystery.
Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, joined the an office of Strategic Services as a spy in 1942 to find her missing brother. She is often paired with Nick Gallagher on different missions and the two grow close.
Six years later, Evelyn is back home in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator. The war was supposed to change so much, but Evelyn is feeling old rules encroaching on her previous years of personal freedoms. A murder case brings Nick back into her orbit and they realize they can’t escape parts of the war that has followed them home.

The difference from war time to immediately after had to be a difficult transition. Women had power and had to hand it back to the men afterwards. For Evelyn, that doesn’t work.
The chemistry between Evelyn and Nick is interesting. The book has an old fashioned hard boiled edge to it with a strong female. Almost a noir feeling.
Tracking secondary characters is important to appreciate the subtlety.
It was missing a likable edge for the characters for me. I understood them but didn’t like them which is unusual for me.

Enthralling post WWII Thriller!

Evelyn Bishop is the daughter of a wealthy American aeronautics industrialist.
Evelyn is totally out of step and bored by the expectations her social strata has for women. When her brother Matthew, fighting in Europe, (pre the US’s entry into the war) is captured by the Nazi’s she can’t sit quietly at home.
Evelyn goes to London and ostensibly becomes a translator. Evelyn speaks five languages.
In reality she joins the Office of Strategic Services, a clandestine US organization and becomes an intelligent officer. She spent the war parachuting out of planes behind enemy lines, over France. Evelyn is always searching for any news of her brother Matthew’s whereabouts.
She works closely with Nick Gallagher, who’s the leader of the Intelligence Team Evelyn’s assigned to. The chemistry between them is volcanic. So it’s all the more shocking when something happens after Victory Day, something that ruptures their relationship.
Returning back stateside after the war Evelyn can’t settle down She becomes a detective. Her’s and her brother’s childhood friend James is there waiting for her. Evelyn is prevaricating about marriage though. Does she want that?
Nick returns back to the States, working with the LAPD, and of course drinking too much. When that fails he too becomes a detective, still climbing into the bottom of a cheap bottle of whiskey.
Now fate throws them together once more. It seems they’re both working on the same case, but for different parties.
What neither expects is the growing number of bodies strewn across their path and a dark mystery emerging, reaching back into their OSS days.
I loved the chemistry between Nick and Evelyn. Their repartee is often sharply laconic and understated. The contrast between their characters charges the pages in the best possible way.
The action moves between 1942 London and France, and 1948 Los Angeles, inserting the important back story into the now.
Parts verged on the predictable but that didn’t any anyway lesson my enjoyment.
A very readable thriller that smacks somewhat of Sam Spade. I must admit to seeing flashes of Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I loved it!

A Kensington Books ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

I received a free copy of this e-book from the publisher (via Netgalley) in exchange for an honest review.

This film noir inspired mystery features two former OSS spies who find themselves working together again in Los Angeles. Evelyn was a great leading lady, but I felt that Nick was a little too hard-boiled for my taste. The plot was intriguing and the unraveling mystery kept me turning pages, but the action was very much dialog-driven.

This would be a good choice for someone interested in film-noir, Raymond Chandler-esque mysteries featuring a strong female lead.½