Review – The Rumor Game by Thomas Mullen @Mullenwrites

Posted on February 28, 2024 by fundinmental

MY REVIEW

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction that deals with war and politics and more, but every once in a while one slips in, such as The Rumor Game by Thomas Mullen. There were elements about the story that struck me personally and it helped me to see the possibilities.

I loved Anne Lemire, because she does not back down. She puts herself front and center, digging and investigating, making herself a target. She writes for The Rumor Clinic, disproving harmful rumors. I thought for sure she was going to get her or someone close to her killed.

FBI Special Agent Devon Mulvey,….caught between a rock and a hard place. His job is to find those working against the government and sabotaging the war effort. I tried not to be judgmental, but….and I didn’t see the choice he would make, but I saw the reason why he made it.

I had to keep telling myself that this is 1943. Things were different then, yet current events prove that history repeats itself, over and over again. I find it puzzling, how those who were treated so badly when they immigrated to the United States could turn around and do the same thing to others. Why are they not more empathetic, seeing they can relate?

Everything felt so real. Whether it’s the Irish chasing and beating Jews or underground organizations printing hat sheet pamphlets inflaming the populace against those different from them and against the war in general, ration stamps, chauvinism, sexism, the union meetings, discrimination and threats in the factories, the USO dances, even religious leaders contributed to the discontent, police corruption, custodial detention, fascism, communism, murder…

….entrenched economic system forced people into roles….Negroes are lazy. Irish are drunks. Italians are criminals. Jews are bloodsuckers.

I found The Rumor Game by Thomas Mullen very disturbing…because it felt so real and made me think….too much…making my brain hurt, or at least giving me a headache. AND…that is why I don’t read a lot of historical fictional war and politics stories.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos — 4 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

A determined reporter and a reluctant FBI agent face off against fascist elements in World War II-era Boston.

June, 1943. Wartime tensions are running high, and an atmosphere of distrust and unease is dividing friends and neighbors. The two protagonists of Thomas Mullen’s gripping historical thriller find themselves at the center of a dangerous tinderbox, trying to douse the sparks before flames engulf the city.

Reporter Anne Lemire writes the Rumor Clinic, a newspaper column that disproves the many harmful rumors floating around town, some of them spread by Axis actors and others just gossip mixed with fear and ignorance. She’s getting tired of chasing rumors about Rosie Riveters’ safety on the job, or whether the Nazis have poisoned lobsters off the coast of Maine. She wants to write about something bigger.

Special Agent Devon Mulvey, one of the few Catholics at the FBI, spends his weekdays preventing sabotage in the war industries and his Sundays spying on clerics with divided loyalties—and he spends his evenings wooing the many lonely women whose husbands are off at war.

When Anne’s story about Nazi propaganda being handed out by local businesses intersects with Devon’s investigation into the death of an immigrant factory worker, the two are led down a dangerous trail of espionage, organized crime, and domestic fascism—one that implicates their own tangled pasts and threatens to expose a larger pattern of conspiracy than either of them could have imagined.

With incredible attention to detail, vibrant historical atmosphere, and a riveting mystery that illuminates still-timely issues about disinformation, power, and influence in a society plagued by division, Thomas Mullen delivers another powerful thriller.

Genre: Espionage, Fictiion, Hisstorical Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller,
368 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication February 27, 2024 by Minotaur

ABOUT THOMAS MULLEN

Thomas Mullen is the author of Darktown, an NPR Best Book of the Year, which has been shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Southern Book Prize, the Indies Choice Book Award, has been nominated for two Crime Writers Assocation Dagger Awards, and is being developed for television by Sony Pictures with executive producer Jamie Foxx; The Last Town on Earth, which was named Best Debut Novel of 2006 by USA Today and was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction; The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers; and The Revisionists. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and sons.

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MY THOMAS MULLEN REVIEWS

Blind Spots

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Review – Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen #netgalley #thomasmullen #blindspots

Posted on April 4, 2023 by fundinmental

I want to thank St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen. I thought this futuristic science fiction thriller had elements that could be all too true.

Amazon / Audiobook / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Wow, what a concept. I love the cover for Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen and when I read the blurb, I knew I had to read it. I mean…check it out…Seven years earlier everyone went blind. Technology steps up to fill the gap, creating a device that allows people to see and downloads information directly into your brain. NOW…WHAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely is an observation Lord Acton made in a letter to Bishop Creighton on April 5, 1887.

With our technological advances in the health care field, Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen may be a warning. I mean, everything is hackable. Why someone would want to do that? There can be many motivations. Greed, hate, power…

The book started out predictable and slow for me. Those who want…everything…take advantage of a bad situation and go for broke. They will stop at nothing to have it all.
Abuse of power, corruption, greed, and all those things that corrupt the corruptible.

The Blinding. The cause is not known for sure. Could it be a bioweapon? Could it be a virus? Think pandemic. What happened when Covid hit, taking down one country after another until it spread worldwide. Did the elite and moneyed get preference? Were those who wanted to take advantage of the situation able to do so? How long does it go on? Years? Decades?

I felt for Homicide Detective Mark Owens, but couldn’t quite connect with him, or any of the other characters. I love the plot of a story, but my reading enjoyment has changed and I want, no, I need, that character connection.

I wanted to love it, but the writing, though I cannot say exactly what it was, did not grip me, did not keep me hanging on by my fingertips. BUT, it did keep me involved. I thought I would be raving while reading it, maybe even throwing my ereader, but that didn’t happen. No matter how badly I wanted to rage, I was thinking, yep. Figured that. Knew that. I wonder if maybe I have become so enured to the CRAP floating around these days that I am immune.

For the rating…First of all, this is an ARC. Things can be changed, twisted and tightened up to improve your reading experience. I flipped between a 3 and a 4. If I did halfsies, it would be 3 1/2.. In that case, I round up to a four. I loved the premise, the technology, and the abuses that follow. I don’t know if it is me or the writing lacked that something extra to get my emotions ramped up, but it is a book I would recommend. It can be a warning, in a way. Technology and all its goodness, can be misused. How do we get the benefit without paying the price? Would you get a vidder, a device that gives you sight and downloads information directly to your brain?

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of Blind Spots by Thomas Mullen.

GOODREADS BLURB

A riveting crime novel with a speculative edge about the ways our perceptions of reality can be manipulated.

Seven years ago, everyone in the world went blind in a matter of months. Technology helped people adjust to the new normal, creating a device that approximates vision, downloading visual data directly to people’s brains. But what happens when someone finds a way to hack it and change what people see?

Homicide detective Mark Owens has been on the force since before The Blinding. When a scientist is murdered, and the only witness insists the killer was blacked out of her vision, Owens doesn’t believe her—until a similar murder happens in front of him. With suspects ranging from tech billionaires to anti-modernity cultists—and with the bodies piling up—Owens must conduct an investigation in which he can’t even trust his own eyes.

Thomas Mullen, the acclaimed author of Darktown and The Last Town on Earth, delivers an unputdownable crime novel about one man’s search for truth in a world of surveillance and disinformation that’s all too recognizable.

ABOUT THOMAS MULLEN