GODS OF DECEPTION

A novel focuses on an American family and Cold War intrigue.

In 1950, Edward Dimock is part of the defense team for Alger Hiss’ second trial. The American government official is accused of spying for the Soviet Union, though the trial is technically for perjury. Is Hiss part of an espionage ring and guilty of perjury, or is he innocent? The jury decides on the former, which sends Hiss to prison. But that is hardly the end of the matter. Many of those involved in the case meet unseemly ends. For instance, a man named Laurence Duggan who could have identified Hiss “if he sang to the FBI, or if he’d been called to testify in the trial” perishes from an “accidental” fall from his office window. Fast-forward to the year 2002. Edward asks his grandson, George, to edit his memoir. Much of the book contains information about the Hiss case. But intrepid George, who almost got a doctorate in astrophysics from Princeton, does some investigating of his own. He teams up with a sprightly artist/rock climbing instructor named Wendy Bradley. Together, George and Wendy dig deeper. As Edward says, there may be many crimes that have gone unrecorded and unpunished, “invisible but shaping the reality we lived through.” At over 900 pages,Cleveland’s book is immense. It is about much more than Hiss and one of his attorneys. There are detailed elements of George’s family. Edward was nearly a Supreme Court nominee. Edward’s son, Teddy, despite his privileged life, enlisted to fight in the Korean War. Then there are numerous historical connections of note. Hiss attended the Yalta Conference with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, was in the same prison at the same time as Hiss. While some fictional elements can weigh the story down (readers learn how Wendy organizes her Brooklyn studio), the portions infused with history are truly compelling. Readers need not buy into grand conspiracies to come away with the idea that, for controversial figures like Hiss, there was a lot more going on than people may ever realize.

An exhaustive yet engaging fictionalized account of an absorbing espionage case.