Louise's Gamble

April 16, 2012
In Shaber’s winning second WWII-era novel of suspense (after 2011’s Louise’s War), 30-year-old widow Louise Pearlie, who clerks for the OSS in Washington, D.C., befriends Alessa di Luca, “a penniless female refugee” she meets at her knitting circle. When Alessa gives Louise a written message to take to her superiors, it turns out that her new friend is really Countess Alessa Oneto, and her message involves critical intelligence concerning mob protection of New York City and other nearby ports from which supplies ship to the North African front. Plucky Louise soon finds herself enmeshed in intrigue involving Sicilian royalty, a Russian-born OSS colonel, and a cutthroat Italian Communist who would rather see postwar Sicily in the hands of his comrades than the Mafia. Shaber brews a delightful mix of feminine wiles (long before women’s liberation) and real-life history that will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency.