Paris, late summer 1938. Fredric Stahl, an Austrian-born Hollywood actor, arrives to make a film as the crisis over Czechoslovakia intensifies. Nazi officials and French sympathisers see his fame as a means of influencing public opinion and pressure him to appear at events that would turn celebrity into political endorsement.
The American embassy asks Stahl to observe the people courting him, drawing him into a contest of propaganda, intimidation and intelligence before the Munich Agreement. His efforts to remain professionally detached become untenable as authoritarian influence reaches into studios, salons and private relationships. The novel examines how cultural prestige can be weaponised before open war begins.
Jacqueline Winspear
20 books
James R. Benn
26 books