The Rumor Game, by Thomas Mullen

A multifaceted historical novel that takes place in World War II Boston.

An aspiring young woman reporter in Boston during World War II, whose name is Anne, attempts to expose antisemitism and a fascist plot in World War II Boston. She has many hurdles to surmount, not the least of which is that she is a child of two worlds, with a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. Anne crosses paths with Devon, who is an FBI agent investigating a murder linked to espionage at a weapons plant. But Devon is a womanizer of sorts and completely Irish Catholic in heritage, not to mention his family involvement with a group of domestic fascists. Anne and Devon wind their way through murder, espionage, and a plot by the fascists to stop US involvement in the war. At the same time they stumble through a disorderly romance. The Rumor Game balances subplots with character dynamics as it moves through difficult domestic circumstance accompanying America’s wartime buildup to the invasion of Italy.

Like his earlier novels, Thomas Mullen weaves together a multifaceted plot that is laid out meticulously with well-timed action and intrigue. The novel’s characters have personalities that are complex, although messy. This heightens the suspense in the plot by always putting the reader on the edge of a concern that the characters will defeat themselves, leaving the villains to escape accountability. Their mistakes are a refreshing departure from the world created by conventional thrillers, where the hero prevails and justice is cleanly served. At the end of The Rumor Game the characters are like unpacked boxes, where a reader can see a top layer but has yet to pull out the rest of the contents.

The Rumor Game is an exquisitely crafted story that coyly glances at closure. The pieces come together in a calibrated fashion, but the message, if one thinks a message is necessary, is clouded by moral ambivalence that is illustrated near the end of the novel by the unsettling last meeting between Anne and Devon. All of the story’s moral questions are presented in that scene, but the only resolution available is one the reader will be required to imagine. Mullen doesn’t offer the classical formal closure aesthetic so many historical mysteries provide. And that makes The Rumor Game a refreshing read.