See What I Mean?

Inside cover
See What I Mean? is a novel about the Los Angeles "Crusade", one of those innumerable little pro-fascist organizations which flourished like plague-rats in the days before America was bombed into the war. It is told by Clem Smullet, a press agent, who joined because he needed a job, a now squeals because the job landed him in jail. His revelations, set down in racy speech, are at once absorbing, convulsing, and grimly enlightening. They tell how the crank, John Christian ("The") Power, started the "Crusade" as a Cause; how the crock, Doc Gribble, turned it into a racket; and how it was converted into an overt Fifth Column agency.

Here you will find all the other characters commonly associated with native "Captain" Cleaver, the fire-eating patrioteer; Kronkhite, the wily Nazi agent; Mrs. Sally Garth Krutch, the crackpot millionairess; Cyrus Peavey, the chiseling businessman; and pretty young Miriam Cabot who apparently knows from nothing.

The details of how the "Crusade" worked are the stunts to lure crowds, the tricks to get funds, the shade-downs and tie ups, the overt acts and the covert plots.

On the basis of painstaking research, the author has succeeded in making his novel virtually a handbook for the study of a political infection which, though momentarily checked in this country, still bears watching. Primarily, however, this is a novel, full of action, insight, humor, and taut suspense. As a portrait of a heel and as a chronicle of a conspiracy, this is fiction both timely and impressive.