American involvement in World War II is six months old, and everybody and her sister flocks to the nation’s capital to find a job. Louise Pearlie, whose husband has died years before and can’t bear to remain in rural North Carolina, has brought her excellent secretarial skills and work experience to the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence organization. Gossip has it that the Allies will invade North Africa within months, hence the OSS search for maps of the coastline and experts who understand the beaches.

One such authority is Gerald Bloch, a French Jew married to a school friend of Louise’s. From what little news she’s received, Louise gathers that Gerald and Rachel are stuck in Marseilles, while reports say that the Vichy government has made sure that no Jews will receive exit visas. Deportation looms, and Louise, who owes Rachel a huge debt, wishes she could help.

Theoretically, the OSS could claim that Gerald Bloch would provide necessary information concerning the upcoming invasion. But the file on him goes missing during the confusion ensuing from the fatal heart attack suffered by the director of Louise’s section. At first, she thinks nothing of this, but soon, at tremendous risk, she sets out to discover how and why a sensitive dossier could simply vanish, and whether recovering it would save the Blochs.

It’s an excellent premise, if a mite dependent on coincidence, but Shaber’s narrative has a lot going for it. For starters, I like how she’s drawn Louise. Growing up poor and churchy, Louise doesn’t quite know what to make of the big city, where old values get shunted aside in the business of making war. The tremendous crush of people in a hurry and under pressure, with ambition and money to spend, offers temptations she’s not used to, but which attract her. Her parents want her to remarry, but she enjoys her independence, even if she wonders what it would feel like to have the financial security and creature comforts she’d never afford on her own.

That said, Louise also knows that many, if not most, men expect women to keep quiet and use their brains only to help solve male problems, for which, of course, they’ll receive no credit. But her common sense doesn’t prevent her from wanting what might not be good for her. I like that complexity.

The other winning facet of Louise’s War is the atmosphere. Whether it’s fabric shortages, the bus company’s refusal to hire Black drivers, people trying to get around the sugar ration, or the habit of traveling GIs tossing letters out train windows, knowing that someone will stamp and mail them, Shaber knows her ground and deploys details with skill.

Given that keen eye and grasp of psychology, I’m surprised to stumble across a cardinal error. Louise’s first-person narration works just fine, but, for some reason, Shaber shoehorns brief, usually first-person, sections belonging to minor characters, ostensibly to reveal information Louise couldn’t know. Since these look as clumsy as they sound, you have to ask, Does the reader need to know? I doubt it.

Pretty much everything would have kept until Louise manages to discover it, and her ignorance could have heightened the tension, complicating her attempts to parse conflicting evidence. As it is, the story telegraphs answers to a couple major questions when, with little effort, the author might have shaded the account of events to create doubt and keep the reader guessing along with Louise.

Less glaring to the general reader, though unfortunately common in fiction, the Jewish characters don’t feel genuine, which turns them into a narrative convenience. I also object to how certain authors consistently say “Nazis” to identify those who invaded other countries and committed mass murder and expropriation, as though “ordinary” Germans distanced themselves from those crimes.

I can’t help think that the author, or her publisher, wants to separate people we like from those we can hate with abandon. Too bad. Similarly, the novel presents a likable, admirable protagonist, born and raised in North Carolina, who befriends the Black women servants in her boardinghouse without a second thought. That seems a little easy.

Nevertheless, in other ways Louise’s War brilliantly presents a city during conflict, a heroine whose voice draws you in, and a mystery that will keep you turning the pages. ( )

Washington DC, WW2, women's-fiction, suspense

Can you call it a murder mystery if it takes most of the book before the murder is no longer called *a heart attack*? Louise works as a file clerk for a clandestine agency and discovered that the good friend from college is in danger from the Nazis in occupied France. Just after she passed information to her boss that would help her friend and her family, the man is found dead of an apparent heart attack and his office a mess. The file that would help her friend goes missing and the story gets progressively more interesting!
The story is well worth the read, but narrator Jenny Hoops makes it even more so! ( )

I live "inside the beltway" now, but in the District when I was in my late teens and early twenties. The physical landmarks Shaber describes are very true to the reality that was 1942 onward. I can picture my father dressed for work in those days. In a way, the book was personal even though I wasn't born until 1950.

The plot is a bit farfetched, but not beyond the realm of possibilities. If one has an elastic imagination, anyway.

But Shaber STILL doesn't employ a copy editor. At least three times she repeated herself verbatim. One sentence contained a duplicate word. A writer needs more than a spell checker. Shaber has the makings of a best selling mystery writer, but it will never happen without a copy editor. We don't charge that much! ( )

Louise is a young widow working for OSS in 1942 when she learns that her former college roommate, Rachel, is trapped in occupied France. When Louise learns that the file on Rachel's husband is missing she decides to do her own investigating in the hopes that OSS can help the family escape. This easy to read mystery recreates the war years, and particularly the changes to American society for women. Unfortunately, the ending is never completely resolved. ( )

Clearly, the author's research is noteworthy. The vivid, realistic depiction of a Washington DC during WWII is fascinating, not only in how significantly women's roles changed during the war, but also in the intriguing mélange of unconventional characters bustling about the city. Louise Pearlie of Wilmington NC is one of these unique women whose lackluster life toiling at her family's fish camp (in reality, most likely Burgaw NC) is dramatically transformed "…as the only clerk in the Research and Analysis branch of the Office of Strategic Services with a Top Secret clearance…"

What eventually transpires within these secret, ostensibly secure sanctuaries is the crux of Louise's War, and such events are far too unfathomable to be accepted as reality. The cursory impetus that propelled Louise's frantic attempts to facilitate a timely escape from Nazi-occupied Vichy, France for her dear Jewish friend Rachel and her children is an integral narrative which deserved more consideration and exposure than it received. ( )