The Hollywood Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery Review and Analysis

In this video or blog, I will review and analyze a book called Hollywood Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal. I will go over several topics in this video or blog. If you want to know more, then you want to watch this video or read this blog.

Hello everyone, Matthew Hemenway here. In this video, I will be reviewing and analyzing a book I read called Hollywood Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery (Book 10 of the series) by Susan Elia MacNeal and I found it to be exceptionally good. I will go over several topics that I read in this book. I want to say thank you for helping me reach 400 subscribers on this channel and still need more help to get to 1,000 subscribers.

Now on with the review.

The book takes place in July 1943, and it focuses on Americans working for Nazis. Those may ask; how could it be possible? This is not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor that took place December 7, 1941. Didn’t it unite the country? Yes and no. It did, but there were those who loved Hitler and thought it was wonderful that he was exterminating Jews. Hitler also hated Black people because a Black person named Jesse Owens won in the Olympics back in 1936 in Berlin, Germany and Hitler hated that.

Hitler had a plan of having American Nazis, yes, they were American citizens, but they believed everything this man was telling them. Here is a quote that he said before the reader would start the book. It says, “We will undermine the morale of America.... Once there is confusion and after we have succeeded in undermining the faith of the American people in their own government, a new group will take over; this will be the German American group, and we will help hem assume power. -ADOLF HITLER, 1933. Yes, and in this book, Hitler had been planning this overthrow of the American government for 10 years.

The author also quotes Albert Camus, the Plague that is the idea that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good. What this means is that evil is never extinguished, you can eliminate the world of 1 bad person, but another 1 takes that person’s place. Here is the quote from the book, “He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the ban and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them froth to die in a happy city. -ALBERT CAMUS, THE PLAGUE

The story starts off with the murder of Gloria Hutton who was killed because she was working undercover to find these American Nazis and turn them into the authorities. She was dead in a pool at the Garden of Allah Hotel. It was the hotel that the LGBTQ community went. If you belonged to that community, you would have to stay underground. It is not like today, you could shout it from the rooftops, but there are those that say it is unnatural.

There were police officers that said her death was an accident and there is no way that she could have died any other way since she was found dead in a swimming pool. RAF pilot John Sterling brought Maggie Hope from London to solve the mystery of Gloria Hutton’s death. At first, they both thought that her husband killed her, Titus Hutton. It would not have surprised the reader as he hated Jews, Black people, or anyone that was different. Titus was abusive to her, and it would make sense to the reader that he wanted to kill her since she was divorcing him. There was corruption in the LAPD and there is 1 in the LAPD that is working for the KKK.

John was dating Gloria to help her cover up her relationship to being a lesbian. She was dating a singer that was a lesbian. Especially back in 1943, you would not want to say that you are a lesbian, it would be a bad idea. This was not why she was being killed. She was killed because she was working undercover for the FBI.

As the book points out, they got people of German Descent to infiltrate the American Nazis. You would not want Jewish people to infiltrate the American Nazis, as the Nazis hated the Jews. The American Nazis were none other than the KKK. The KKK hated Black People as well as Jews.

The man that runs the KKK in this story is Williard Whitaker, but he goes by Will Whitaker. He tells people what they want to hear, and he ramps up the hate and the fear. Will tells them that this is not America, if we let Black People, Jews, or even Women have rights. He tells people that if you let this happen, you will not have a country anymore. It is creating a false perception and letting people believe it is okay to hate your neighbor. They claim to be Christian, but this is not Christian.

Christians are supposed to love their neighbors. As it says in the Bible and these words come from Jesus Christ,” Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.” If you believe in love, love should mean that you love people as they are. As it says in 1st Corinthians Chapter 13: Love does not insist on its own way, it is not boastful, or arrogant. It is opposite of Hate. Hate destroys lives. A good reference would be Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. “Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to suffering.” There is nothing good about Hate.

The plan of KKK, these American Nazis is to attack the premiere of Victory through Air Power which is done by Walt Disney Pictures in 1943 and yes, that film came out in 1943; you could find the reference on IMDB as well as YouTube. Yes, Walt Disney is in this book and John Sterling works for him as Walt was doing this film to help encourage Americans to keep up with the faith that they can beat Hitler. Will Whitaker tells them this is an attack on Good Nazis, and we must remain patriotic. There is an undercover agent in the KKK, these American Nazis in this book. As not to spoil the ending of the book; it does get the reader to the climax of this book.

Why is this book relevant today? There would be questions that this book took place back in July 1943 and why would it be? The answer is that look at what is happening today. You have political leaders who are spewing out Hate and wanting this

country to go back to the days of Dixi. They promised people that America will go back to be great again, but is it? I am sure there are those out there are asking, am I getting political? No, I am not, and I will tell you why. There are those behaving like Hitler and Will Whitaker. There is more at stake than people running for office, there is our democracy at stake. Today, you have a political party that is interested in attaining power at all costs and does not care if they destroy the democracy or not.

Today, there are groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. They are like the KKK because they believe they are going to get America back to the good old days where women would know their place, and this is going to be a white male country. This does not make sense in that the economy would collapse as there would not be enough white men to do the jobs. The country needs everyone that can to do the jobs that are necessary.

There is a movie that is a great reference, the Black Klansman where a police officer infiltrated the KKK and had them believe he was white when he was not. He had his partner played by Adam Driver infiltrate the Klan. Adam did an excellent job of having these people believe he was on their side when he was not. It is remarkably like the guy who is infiltrating the KKK in this story.

Another reference would be the Rocketeer where in that movie, there is a Nazi spy who is working for the Nazis. The spy was after the Rocket, but it was the idea of trying to crumple the American spirit. The Rocket was the idea that the Germans would fly on these rocket packs and hope to the topple the American government.

The chemical fertilizer the KKK decides to use in this story is remarkably like the

fertilizer that Timothy McVeigh used, and this was used to inspire Will Whitaker’s story line. This was going to be used to blow up the theater. As not to spoil the ending, but it does get the reader to the climax of this story.

I will leave links to videos in the description below that are good references such as the Black Klansman trailer that came out in 2018, Inside the New Ku Klux Klan, and Women Fill Men’s Factory Jobs During World War II that you can watch on YouTube. Please consider watching them as it will help prove the point I am making in this video.

I give this story a 10 out 10 rating. I thought it was well done and is truly relevant to the times we are living in. It had a clever thing where they used a book as a cipher, and I will not say what book is as to not spoil the ending. If you travel, I like that it comes with an audio version of this book as well.

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