A historical fiction account about the rise of Nazi sympathizers in California leading up to WWII. Based on real people, we look at how the movement came close to doing real damage to America during this time while learning about the courageous Americans that risked their lives to spy on the Nazi movement in America. It truly is a stunning piece of American history come to life in fiction. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read - it truly was powerful.

American Nazism is growing in Southern California in the early days of World War II. Veronica and her mother Vi, stumble into spying when Veronica takes a job as a typist. Her boss turns out to be an organizer of Nazi propaganda and demonstrations. When Veronica and Vi try to alert police and the FBI of this threat, they are not taken seriously. Vi calls a friend of her deceased husband and the military offers them both a chance to serve their country by finding out whatever they can and reporting back. Loosely based on a real-life mother-daughter spy team, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy is informative and thought provoking.

In her Maggie Hope series, Susan MacNeal has seemed to be more and more interested in the US side of the outbreak of WWII (see The Hollywood Spy, 2021). In this novel, a standalone, she pursues that interest, creating a terrifying account of Nazism in America in 1940. Her central characters, mother and daughter Vi and Veronica, kick off the action with Veronica’s graduation from Hunter College in New York. Veronica is looking forward to an internship at Mademoiselle magazine, but thanks to an unfortunate turn of events the internship is rescinded. She and her mother, along with her Pasadena based Uncle Walter (in town for her graduation from Hunter) make plans to move to California. Uncle Walter is willing to let the women live in his beach house.

Uprooted and beginning life in a very new place, Veronica begins by looking for a journalism job, with no luck. A woman in a diner overhears her talking with her mother and tells her to ask a friend of hers for a typing job. Intrepid, she heads out to check out this job, where she is hired by the friendly McDonnells and put right to work. However, by the end of her first workday, she realizes the McDonnells, nice as they may be, are Nazis. She and her mother turn first to the police, then the FBI, and then, as a last resort, to an old Navy contact of her father’s.

That gets the ball rolling. Vi is a Navy widow, so she’s listened to and the women’s account it referred to two men working undercover and mostly unappreciated in LA (at the time, Hoover was more worried about Communists). When the men hear Veronica’s story, they ask if she will work undercover, using her journalism skills to observe and report back to them everything she hears in her work. Veronica agrees and it’s not long before her mother, who is an embroidery whiz, gets noticed by a fashionable woman who wants not only to commission some work but to introduce Vi to her friends.

The woman takes Vi to an “America First” lunch. This group, organized by Charles Lindbergh, was very much an isolationist group, wanting to keep the US out of another foreign war so soon after the last one. While Vi herself is an isolationist, she’s not an anti-Semite, and she’s horrified by what she hears at the luncheon. It’s not long before she, too, is working undercover.

MacNeal does an excellent job of illustrating the strain and tension of living a life that’s nothing like your own. Even though it’s for a very good cause, she becomes more and more uncomfortable as she gets close to and begins dating one of the young Nazis she meets at the social club the McDonnells take her to. Because she looks “right” – i.e. Aryan, blonde, blue eyed, with a German background, and because she sits in the background taking shorthand, she’s pretty well overlooked. Not only is she sitting in meetings taking notes, she’s learning all kinds of things from her boyfriend, and she’s able to pass along quite a lot of information.

What’s truly unsettling about this book are the parallels to our present moment, with it’s threat of violence from groups that want to listen to only one voice. At times it was difficult to read. Of course, MacNeal’s story, set in 1940 and heading to 1941, is going to end in a decisive manner with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The very human cost of the undercover work done by Veronica, Vi and their team is beautifully illuminated by MacNeal, who, as always, wears her writer’s heart on her sleeve. Heartbreaking and ultimately redemptive, the reader knows Veronica and Vi still have much to live through, but they’ve really done their part. This is a fascinating backstage look at history.

Veronica Grace is a recent graduate of Hunter College Class of 1941 and the pride and joy of her mother, Vi, a Navy widow. With a job already lined up with Mademoiselle magazine, Veronica's future looks bright and full of promise.
If this was a movie, the director would have cued the screeching tire sound and a sudden about face would have happened. Veronica's life is turned upside down when and affair that she has been having with a married man comes to light and the magazine rescinds their job offer.
Her Uncle Wally steps in and offers Veronica and her mother a fresh start in Los Angeles. Veronica is still in need of a job and counts herself lucky when she meets a woman whose husband is looking for a typist. Veronica is stunned when she finds out that her new employer is part of a Nazi group that is operating in Los Angeles.
Veronica and Vi are shocked to learn that there are so many Nazi sympathizers living in Los Angeles and the surrounding area. After reaching out to the authorities with their suspicions, the Mother and daughter are dismayed when they are rebuffed by authorities who won't do anything.
Eventually there is a meeting with an anti-Nazi sympathizer who persuades both of them to go undercover and become spies in hopes of exposing this group who are recruiting individuals for their cause.
Suddenly, Vi and Veronica find themselves leading a double life and keeping secrets as they try to uncover the California Reich's ultimate plot on December 6, 1941 before its too late.
Susan Elia MacNeal's fictional book is inspired by and loosely based on a real-life mother and daughter duo, Sylvia and Grace Comfort, who foiled wartime Nazi plots.
Her book is a story of love, family, and courage in one of the most terrifying times in American history.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. #NetGalley #MotherDaughterTraitorSpy

A page-turning historical fiction spy novel that portrays the real life mother-daughter duo who became spies infiltrating the hiding-in-plain-sight Nazi movement simmering in Los Angeles in the 1940s, at the cusp of the US entering WWII. Thoroughly researched, MacNeal gives the reader an insider's look at the efforts to stop anti-semitism and the forces at play as a growing American Nationalist movement conflated racism with efforts to keep the US out of the war. In some instances the efforts of daughter Veronica and her mother Vi to gain access to the planned racist campaigns and attacks seemed somewhat unbelievable and yet, the essence of this story is mostly true. Readers should make sure to read the author notes at the end which provide details on which characters and incidents were based on historical fact. Fascinating. and eerie to note the parallels to the unrest, nationalism and prejudice we are seeing in the world today. For those who believe history can't repeat itself, this is also a thought-provoking reminder of how far and not far we have come. Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A great WWII spy story based taking place in the US. If you liked the last Maggie Hope series book you will like this book. This is a great in depth follow up to the last Maggie Hope book that delves into the Nazi group set up in LA.

I have not read any other novels by Susan Elia MacNeal, and this was my first. This novel was such a good read. I loved that it took place in the U.S. in WWII instead of overseas. It was like a breath of fresh air for a historical novel. How the United States was before entering WWII is not mentioned as much in books as how the European countries fared, and so it is a great perspective to show that Nazis, Japanese, and communists all were being speculated about and watched for signs of treason or sabotage.

This novel takes place in the U.S. in 1940 prior to the U.S. entering WWII. A strong mother daughter duo who has relocated to the West Coast join forces with two extraordinary men who are anti-Nazi spies with multiple people working with them to infiltrate the clusters of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers state side after Veronica and Vi witness strong anti Semitic behavior from fellow Americans. This novel is based on true events and true people, even though the names have been changed. A truly great story about resilience, bravery, and courage in the face of the enemy. It is a fairly quick paced read (I thought) due to its prose, intensity, and dialogue.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC!
Pub day is September 20, 2022!

I found this engaging and action-packed. I have read this author before and enjoyed her works. Some romance, action and suspense . There was a humanitarian message in the book, which I think especially at these times is well needed, "That's why you did so well- you never saw them as monsters. You saw them as humans, humans who'd gone terribly wrong." This book made me look up what the real facts were and learn about a lot of unshared history. I also appreciated how it discussed the injustices against the Japanese in internment camps, and how first generation or third, we can not judge people and their patriotism. Overall a good read.

Veronica and her newly widowed mother, Vi, move from New York to Los Angeles and Veronica takes a typing job with a man who she quickly discovers is an anti-Semite, pro-Hitler Nazi. Veronica and her mother are shocked by this finding and by the lack of concern when they try to report it to the authorities, who seem much more concerned with catching Communists. Some others share their apprehension, though, and both Veronica and Vi are quickly signed on to be FBI investigators. The novel is loosely based on real people and events in California during WWII before the United States joined the war, which is explained well in the Afterword.

I found this historical fiction book to be very informative. A large group of Nazis, followers of Adolf Hitler, planned to sabotage important United States structures and commodities such as power plants and airplanes, and the removal, or killing, of Jews and people of color from the country. Their eventual goal was to create a nation such as Hitler’s authoritarian Aryan dictatorship. What I knew about this subject was just the tip of the iceberg. The book was very well-researched, with sources shown in the Author's notes. Susan Elia MacNeal’s prose flows nicely and creates tension without being overly dramatic. I did, however, find the ending to be a bit much. It felt as if the author did not know how to end the story so thought of a huge, explosive ending. Overall, a wonderful book that may teach many people about events of which they were unaware. Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam Publishing for this ARC.

I have read the Maggie Hope books by MacNeal and enjoyed most of them. The ones that put Maggie in danger from the Nazis scared me as I read them because I realized they were so true. In the same way, this stand-alone novel scared me in the same way. Veronica Grace has just graduated from college in 1940 and has a dream job with a woman's magazine in Manhattan only to have the offer withdrawn when her affair with another married journalist comes to light. Devastated, Veronica and her mother Violet Grace accept the offer of a summer house owned by her uncle who lives in Los Angeles and a new start on the West Coast.
Veronica soon finds out that journalist positions for woman are not easily come by. When she is offered a clerical position, she grabs it. Violet is a second-generation German immigrant and when Veronica starts her new job, she quickly realizes that the people who have offered her work are supporters of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. When Veronica and Violet try and report this information to the local police and FBI they are rebuffed -- apparently only Communists are of interest, especially to the FBI. Eventually they are recruited to spy on the organization by an independent group who are worried about Nazis and their recruiting in the U.S.
All in all, this story did not grab me as much as other novels by MacNeal. It is based on real people, but it did not keep me reading as much as her other books have.

Near the end of the book, the main character says, and I paraphrase, "...it not only could have happened here, it almost did". She also mentioned that it could happen again in the future.. What she was talking about, is the fact that Nazi sympathizers nearly turned our democracy into a fascist government in 1940. And as we have seen in the last few years, there were forces trying to do it again.
" Mother Daughter Traitor Spy", based on the real life story of a mother and daughter team who spied on the Nazi Bund in Los Angeles in 1940, is a good story, but alas, not a great one. Some of the writing is just too sophomoric. Some of the dialog seems like it was taken directly from a 1940's B movie. It just didn't ring true, even though, it really might have been. The characters, however, were well drawn and the plot line really believable. The book, well, it just could have been better.

While the premise of this one is solid, it's well-researched, and I did enjoy learning more about this period in American history, I felt the writing was a bit pedestrian and slowed the pacing, resulting in my growing bored fairly quickly. Some scenes, though apparently based on a real life story, seemed far-fetched and unrealistic and the characters felt like they could have been developed more - everything seemed a bit surface and skimmed over, so that after a while, it felt like I was reading a very ordinary book. I've read some of the author's other books and enjoyed them more than this one. Plus the rah-rah patriotism expressed was laid on a bit thick for modern sensibilities.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review. This story ,which was based on real people and real events, , was an eye opener about the Nazis in America in the 1940’s. A mother and daughter went undercover to spy on the Nazis in California who were planning on overthrowing our government if Roosevelt got re-elected. The influential German Nazis in America had power and money and were backed by the German government to spread hatred, violence and destruction. The daughter was a journalist and hoped to land a big story. The mother , who was German born, was ashamed of the Nazis and their ideas. This is a very interesting and well written story showing how people can become devout followers and follow almost cult like organizations and people. I learned a lot about the Nazi influences in America during WWII .

What an entertaining story! Based on an actual mother and daughter that did become spy’s during the late 30’s, when Hitler and the Nazi’s began their reign of terror. Why knew that in California that their were large cells of Nazi sympathizers, working to cleanse our country of Jews, Blacks and Hispanics. Their are some situations and famous people that are mentioned, that were a part of this, including the Lindbergh’s.
This is an excellent researched novel, based on the story of a mother and daughter that moved from New York to LA during that period. The daughter took a job as a typist for a small business and soon found out that they were part of a Nazi group. Because of her German background and Aryan looks, they assumed that she was a sympathizer. Her mother is also pulled in to a social group and becomes close to some of the most prominent leaders of the women’s fraction.
Disturbed about the situation, they go to the police, the FBI, and finally a friend of her deceased husband who is in Naval Intelligence. They are contacted by some men that are working for Intelligence and these two untrained women are hired as spies.
This is a fascinating story that took place in my own State. Who ever heard of it, but it’s scary to think, especially in our current political climate. I saw some very parallel situations in this story. Susan Elia MacNeal is a very gifted storyteller and her research was so evident in this novel. I recommend it highly.
My thanks to the author, NetGalley and to Bantam Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

I should confess that while many readers are fans of the author’s Maggie Hope series, I am not. I read a ton of WW2-era fiction and non-fiction, but I don’t think MacNeal brings her stories to life well. I quit reading that series awhile back, but the American underground Nazi movement is a subject I’ve been intrigued with for a long time and I couldn’t resist trying this book.

Unfortunately, this book has issues that make it a tough go. First, the dialogue is so unrealistic. Can you imagine someone actually thinking, in these words: How I love this country, this glorious beacon of hope and promise. Seriously? Or someone saying to her mother: You’re my North Star, my partner in crime, my guiding light. It’s embarrassingly bad writing. And this is at the beginning of the book, right after she uses the word “enormity” incorrectly. There is a lot more to come.

MacNeal also uses dialogue and internal monologue to demonstrate her research. Her characters give long, didactic speeches on such topics as women in journalism, the history of the war in England to 1940, the suffragist movement in the US, First Amendment constitutional law, and the isolationist and Nazi-sympathizer movements. I can’t help but compare this stilted approach to the smoothly integrated way authors like Kate Atkinson and the late Philip Kerr establish factual and historical backgrounds in their historical fiction books set in similar eras.

I read the whole book, but it took effort. About halfway through, things definitely improved as our leads infiltrated the local Nazi organizations and learned about their seditious and white supremacist plans. Still, there was a whole lot of exposition-by-speechifying from our leads and their spymasters.

The story of the combat against America’s Nazis is a fascinating one, with Los Angeles and Hollywood being a particularly interesting battleground. I wish a better writer could have dramatized some of that story, but there are many excellent nonfiction books on the subject, including Laura B. Rosenzweig’s Hollywood’s Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles; Thomas Doherty’s Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939; Ben Urwand’s The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler; Steven J. Ross’s Hitler in Los Angeles; Michael Benson’s Gangsters vs. Nazis. There are also many good novels—most set in England—about Nazi fifth columnists. Just a few of them from recent years include Rebecca Starford’s An Unlikely Spy, Kate Atkinson’s Transcription, D.J. Taylor’s The Windsor Faction, and Anthony Quinn’s Our Friends in Berlin.

MacNeal has written a WWII novel set in Los Angeles, based on a real mother-daughter pair who infiltrated American Nazi groups and provided valuable intelligence in the days leading up to the U.S. entering the war. The story is intriguing, tense, and engaging. I really liked both Veronica and Vi, and thought their characters were well-drawn. It did feel at times that MacNeal went overboard in small descriptors, as if making sure the reader knew she had done meticulous research. Overall, an interesting look at a lesser-known area of WWII history. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Bantam for a digital review copy.

First thank you Net Galley for this early copy of Mother Daughter Traitor Spy! This book is by Susan Elia MacNeal, the author of the Maggie Hope series, which I really enjoy! This book came about during her research for her last book in that series, where she learned about Nazi spies in Los Angles.

So much I never knew had happened in the advent of WWII and America's involvement. It was very interesting to learn about the covert, and not so covert, groups undermining the efforts of America's joining in the war and their vile hate of anyone different from their ideal of a pure race. It always makes me sad that people have so much hate and desire to hurt others not to their liking. In the book she shows a perspective of how ordinary people can get caught up into this fervor of hate.

MacNeal does a great job in taking as along for the ride of two female spies, of German descent ,infiltrating the Nazi spy rings and what they were able to uncover and with their intel stop from happening.

Based on real people, this book is an interesting, well written, hard to put down story of WWII . I have read numerous accounts, from so many different lens, of the experiences people had during this time period and this is yet another novel angle of telling what happened during those times.

I recommend this book, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy and also the Maggie Hope series if you have as yet to discover it!

4.5 / 5.0 stars

What a fantastic historical fiction story surrounding events during the time of World War II. Even more astounding, is that the story is based on the very real lives of Grace Comfort and her daughter Sylvia and their undercover work to bring justice to bear and to keep American democracy alive.

Veronica Grace is a young up and coming New York City journalist who experiences a sudden fall from grace (please pardon the pun). Her west coast uncle offers her and her mother "Vi" a free cottage in Santa Monica, which he no longer has the heart to occupy. They hesitantly accept and off to Los Angeles they go.

Veronica struggled to find employment within the L.A. publishing world and accepted a job as a typist for an "Educational Service Bureau". The "Bureau" turned out to be a front for pro-Nazi propagandists. Veronica was appalled and she, along with her mother Vi, tried to get folks in law enforcement to take notice. Unfortunately, in 1940, the focus was against the communists and not the American Nazis. The two Graces are soon connected to Ari Lewis (the fictional name of the very real spymaster, Leon L. Lewis) and recruited to go undercover to infiltrate the pro-Nazi organization.

Author Susan Elia MacNeal writes in a fluid and elegant style. The tension built gradually over the course of the book, came to a heady climax and slowly eased to a satisfying conclusion. The research Ms. MacNeal pursued for this story was no less than herculean. Very few of this book's characters were of the real persons of history yet all the characters were inspired by the real players of this time. Ms. MacNeal infused the naïveté, patriotism and derring-do of a willing, brave, yet very young participant in her Veronica Grace, who never demonized her opponents. Instead, she found what was good in them and was saddened when she saw them as "humans who'd gone terribly wrong". Oh, the things people do out of fear and ignorance.

If well-researched historical fiction is your thing, then I highly commend this book to your reading list. It was informative and an exhilarating read.

I am grateful to Susan Elia MacNeal and her publisher, Bantam Books, for having provided a complimentary copy of this book. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

This historical fiction book focuses on two women, a mother and a daughter, who find themselves spying on Nazis in Los Angeles, right before WWII starts. After getting fired from a job as a reporter in New York, Veronica and her mother, a widow, move to LA. When Veronica discovers that the couple she works for are Nazis, she and her mother report them and are asked to use their German backgrounds to infiltrate a West Coast cadre of Nazis.

I enjoyed this book, but I found myself skipping and skimming a lot. Based on real life people and situations, this book showed part of WWII history that I had not encountered before. However, many of the characters seemed a bit stereotyped or underdeveloped. Overall, however, it was well worth reading.

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy
By Susan Elia MacNeal

This is a novel loosely based on real people in the early days of World War II in southern California. It is about hate groups supported by the German Nazis and the extent of the America First movement's reach. The fact that their numbers were in the thousands and they had amassed weapons of all kinds and were preparing a ranch as Hitler's west coast home is truly horrifying.

But what makes this book really frightening is that many otherwise "normal" people were caught up in the hate and the craziness. This is a good book to read in light of the state of America today.