Jack 1939

Title:

Jack 1939

Author:

Mathews, Francine.

Personal Author:

Mathews, Francine.

ISBN:

9781594487194

Publication Information:

New York : Riverhead Books, 2012.

Physical Description:

361 p. ; 24 cm.

Abstract:

Tapped by President Franklin Roosevelt to travel to Europe and learn what the Nazis are planning, twenty-two-year-old John F. Kennedy, son of the U.S. ambassador to Britain, joins the president's efforts to stop the flow of German money that is influencing the 1940 U.S. election.

Personal Subject:

Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963-Travel-Europe-Fiction.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945-Fiction.

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945-Fiction.

Subject Term:

Espionage, American -- Germany -- Fiction.

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Suspense fiction.

Spy stories.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION MATHEWS	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Charming. Reckless. Brilliant. Deadly.

A young Jack Kennedy travels to Europe on a secret mission for Franklin Roosevelt as the world braces for war.

It's the spring of 1939, and the prospect of war in Europe looms large. The United States has no intelligence service. In Washington, D.C., President Franklin Roosevelt may run for an unprecedented third term and needs someone he can trust to find out what the Nazis are up to. His choice: John F. Kennedy.

It's a surprising selection. At twenty-two, Jack Kennedy is the attractive but unpromising second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Roosevelt's ambassador to Britain (and occasional political adversary). But when Jack decides to travel through Europe to gather research for his Harvard senior thesis, Roosevelt takes the opportunity to use him as his personal spy. The president's goal: to stop the flow of German money that has been flooding the United States to buy the 1940 election--an election that Adolf Hitler intends Roosevelt lose.

In a deft mosaic of fact and fiction, Francine Mathews has written a gripping espionage tale that explores what might have happened when a young Jack Kennedy is let loose in Europe as the world careens toward war. A potent combination of history and storytelling, Jack 1939 is a sexy, entertaining read.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

FDR recruits a young Jack Kennedy to do some sleuthing in Europe on the eve of World War II. It's early 1939. Jack is 21, overshadowed by older brother Joe and racked by an undiagnosed disease, but Roosevelt sees past all that because he intuits that Jack is a nonconformist and risk-taker. The president has decided to run for a third term. What concerns him is a German network steering money to Democratic clubhouses in hopes of electing an isolationist. Jack must find out how it operates; as son of the ambassador to London, he will have all the access he needs. The premise is different enough from Philip Roth's The Plot Against America to be workable, and Mathews has carefully researched the period, but her portrait of Jack comes up short. She captures the charming ladies' man, the romantic hero indifferent to death, but there's little sign of his questing intelligence; Jack's initial reason for traveling is to research his Harvard senior thesis (eventually his first book, Why England Slept). His fellow travelers on the trans-Atlantic crossing include Diana Playfair, an English femme fatale and Fascist sympathizer, and the White Spider, a psychopathic killer working for Gestapo chief Heydrich. We've already seen the Spider knife to death his first two victims, a sign that melodramatic cheap thrills will trump geopolitical intrigue. Jack will fall big time for Diana as they crisscross Europe. They will make furious love, but can she be trusted, especially after Heydrich snaps her up? Jack sends Morse code messages to FDR. He'll be in plenty of tight spots, though there's usually backup, and he gets to use his Luger. What hurts Jack most is his discovery that his dad is one of the network's secret donors; their confrontation gets physical. A bold concept, poorly executed by this veteran thriller writer (Blown, 2005, etc.).]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.