Thomas Mullen dives deeply into the gray area between good and evil in The Rumor Game with two protagonists caught by conflicting loyalties in Boston, 1943: to truth and justice, to safety and pragmatism, to family ties and patriotism. Anne Lemire is a journalist struggling to make a name in the very sexist media world while FBI agent Devon Mulvey is fighting to uphold the law when so many others around him are more than happy to sweep things under the rug. Mullen drops our heroes into the thick things and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next. More than once I thought about red strings and corkboards to keep track of the criminal schemes and shenanigans.
Anne is my favorite of the two protagonists; I found it easier to identify with her crusading spirit rather than Devon’s waffling and womanizing. We meet Anne just as she wraps up another story for her newspaper column, the Rumor Clinic, which debunks misinformation and myths, and is hunting around for her next idea. She’d like to investigate a series of violent attacks on Jewish residents of the Dorchester neighborhood. Her boss, however, aware of the antisemitic and isolationist attitudes of the newspaper’s readership, vetoes the idea. Anne doesn’t take no for an answer and decides to start asking questions on her own. Before long, cops and rabbis are telling her to back off of the story. Meanwhile, a chance meeting with Devon Mulvey on the street leads to romantic and investigative entanglements.
Devon’s primary job with the FBI is running background checks on people applying for war work across Boston. Even though there’s more work than potential employees, the Bureau doesn’t want any communists or subversives anywhere near vital industries. They presumably don’t want any Nazi sympathizers, either, but it’s pretty clear who most people consider the bigger threat—to Devon’s annoyance and chagrin. Devon and Anne might seem like natural allies—and, for a while, they make a great team—but cracks appear when Devon follows clues that lead back to his own family, his allegiance wavers.
The Rumor Game runs all over the mean streets of Boston from abandoned warehouses to suspect diners to elegant offices to various triple-deckers around Dorchester. Anne and Devon are threatened by antisemitic mobs, mafia members, and a parade of crooked cops. They have few allies. Even their own organizations turn on them. To be honest, it’s a wonder that neither of them end up in a hospital or dead. With all this going on, however, it’s hard to know what’s a red herring and what’s a genuine clue. The confusion adds a lot to verisimilitude as real-world investigations are rarely as neat as the ones we see in fiction. I also appreciated the way Anne and Devon’s inquiries lead them in multiple directions as they try to figure out, first, what’s going on and second, what to do about it. I love good ethical dilemmas. On the other hand, the plots and subplots of The Rumor Game are muddied and the narrative feels overstuffed.
I would recommend The Rumor Game to readers who like original historical mysteries but with reservations.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.