Authors discuss 3 new books (featuring spies, vampires and lovable con artists) at Twin Cities events

Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press
·7 min read

It’s a good week for fiction readings, with three authors — two from Minnesota — offering spies, a vampire and a nearly blind con man.

“Code Name Edelweiss”: by Stephanie Landsem (Tyndale House Publishers, $15.99)

“If the Schwinns succeeded in whatever they were planning – and if the Silver Shirts massacred the Jewish studio heads at the Wiltshire Boulevard Temple — every studio in Culver City and Hollywood would be affected. There would be opportunity for Nazis to take a key position in the studio and indoctrinate National Socialism across America through films and newsreels. A great step forward for the Nazis — and a disaster for the Jewish people of America.” — From “Code Name Edelwesis”

It’s 1933 and Liesl Weiss has been terminated from her job as a stenographer. It’s the beginning of the Depression and 21-year-old Liesl knows she has to find employment soon because she’ supporting her family, including her mother and two younger children. Her brother, Fritz, is a policeman who is supposed to help with finances, but he isn’t much use when it comes to providing money.

So begins this Minnesotan’s tightly-written fifth historical novel. It is so steeped in the milieu of the years leading up to World War II it will make readers shiver, especially the story’s theme — the rise of Hitler, his hatred for Jews and his plot to take over the important Hollywood studios, oust the Jewish owners — Thalberg, Mayer, the Warners — and use the facilities to make propaganda films.

If this sounds farfetched, it isn’t. There was such a plot, unknown until recent years, about how a Jewish lawyer and a handful of amateur spies discovered the Nazis’ plans.

In the novel that lawyer is Leon Lewis, who can’t persuade anyone in power in the U.S. that Hitler is a grave threat to the American film industry and American Jews. He has some financial backing, but almost no support. So he recruits amateur spies, which is how Liesl becomes his eyes and ears as a secretary at headquarters of the Nazi-affiliated German Alliance. But is she betraying her own heritage and her neighbors in her German American community? To what country does she owe loyalty? Is Hitler really that much of a threat?

Given the code name Edelweiss, Leisl carefully watches Hermann and Thekla Schwinn, head of the Alliance. And everywhere she turns there’s a man on the staff who scares her. Leisl’s a good spy because she has contacts and old friends at MGM, where her late father was a cameraman and her mother a seamstress. She and her brother grew up playing on the huge movie sets and she has reason to believe one of them will be the scene of a bloody shoot-out.

Chapters about Leisl are interspersed with movements of someone she (and the reader) knows only as Agent Thirteen. As more rumors surface about a daring assault on Jews at a funeral and at MGM, Edelweiss and Thirteen race to thwart the gathering Nazis.

“Code Name Edelweiss” is a great read, part thriller, part political warning. Landsem perfectly recreates the America of the 1930s and the dedication of a handful of spies who risked their lives to save the American film industry and the Jews.

Landsem will launch her novel at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 8, Upstairs at Lucky Guys Distillery, 101 Second St., Hudson, Wis. RSVPs are encouraged at 651-343-2098. For information: stephanielandsem.com.

“The God of Endings”: by Jacqueline Holland (Flatiron Books, $29.99)

“No.” He shook his head. “The god of endings. Czernobog. That is his symbol. Do you not recognize it? It presents itself to me five times day. He is coming. I feel it. He does not always leave choices.” — From “The God of Endings”

Is there anyone who doesn’t love an involving vampire story? Of course not. That’s why St. Paul author Jacqueline Holland’s debut novel is such a treat.

Collette LeSange was 4 when she was “turned” in the early 1830s by her indifferent grandfather because he thought she was strong enough to endure life on Earth for a long time. And she did.

We follow Collette through a century and a half. She falls in love, only to have her lover immolate himself, killing a woman who was like a mother to her. She loves an artist with whom she lives in the woods and helps the German resistance by killing soldiers but is still considered a spy.

Now it’s 1984 and Collette is running a French immersion school for pre-kindergartners in upstate New York. She is tired of living in this world, but she loves the children, especially a troubled boy whose artistic abilities are amazing. As the boy’s parents drag Collette deeper into their dysfunctional family, she becomes obsessed with providing the child with a safe place. Meanwhile, her hunger for blood grows until it’s almost unbearable.

Holland revealed to her publisher this novel was spawned by her anxiety being a new mother, and feeling responsible for the care and formation of a vulnerable little human while also crippled by the guilt and dread of her own imperfection. “I wrestled painfully with the duality of my own nature, and in the midst of this turmoil, a character began speaking to me who was also agonizing over the balance of good and evil in herself and in the world,” she wrote.

The author, who lives in the Twin Cities and teaches at the Loft Literary Center, will launch her novel in conversation with Andrew Elfenbein, English professor at the University of Minnesota, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 7, at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls. Free, registration required. Go to magersandquinn.com/events

“Confidence”: by Rafael Frumkin (Simon & Schuster, $27.99)

“So basically what this thing does is it stimulates nerves in the brain to calm people down?” Dexter asked.

“And deliver them into a state of bliss,” I said. “We call it Portable Intracranial Bliss.” — From “Confidence”

You have never met a more likable pair of con men than Ezra Green and Orson Ortman, protagonists of this comic novel by an assistant professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

The narrator is short, skinny, gap-toothed Ezra, with eyesight so bad he’s been wearing glasses since childhood. Orson is model-gorgeous. They meet at a camp for juveniles who are just a breath away from incarceration. Ezra’s there because of a high school scam in which he sewed together cheap fabrics and sold them as designer bags and garments, complete with stolen tags. As their cons progress, Ezra is the brains and personable Orson sells the ideas.

Besides being in love with Orson, who returns the feeling, Ezra is happy to have a partner in making money the easy way. They do everything from sleight of hand with $20 bills, leaving store clerks confused and with an extra $8 in their pockets. But they upgrade their larceny when they discover that Orson can put people into a sort of stupor with massage and whispered encouragement. They call this Synthesis and all the big-money capitalists and movie stars are clamoring to have it done to them.

The next jump, the one that earns them serious millions, is launching a company they call NuLife. It combines Synthesis with a useless machine equipped with flashing lights and other gimmicks that is supposed to provide insights. They buy acres of land and build the Farm, a building surrounded by people living in tents who nearly worship Orson. He appears now and then, speaking to them like a cult leader. And he begins to be interested in a woman, causing Ezra blinding flashes of pain in his eyes and minutes of blindness.

Things go even more out of control when Orson plans to marry a movie star just about the time people are having doubts about whether NuLife is headed for disaster.

Ezra and Orson make millions off the very rich, so some could argue they are only getting some money back from those who don’t need it. (In the early days, for instance, they work at a hotel and realize the lonely wives of Big Shots are the ones who are liberal with money. They whisper to the wives that Orson has a special wine he will share with them late at night, grooming the ladies to lavish gifts and dollars on the two grifters without even taking his pants off.)

Whatever their moral failings, Ezra and Orson will make you laugh. If a film was made from this book, a young Woody Allen would be Ezra.

Frumkin will read at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 9, at Magers & Quinn. Free, but registration required. Go to magersandquinn/events.

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