What do you think?
Rate this book
Amerikan Eagle
History will be changed in a city by the sea.
In 1943, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sam Miller is a cop supporting a family and trying to stay on the right side of his boss, the law, and his conscience. Then a body is found by the railroad tracks, a number tattooed on the victim's wrist. It is a case Sam could walk away from. It is a case he will be ordered to drop. And it is case that leads him into a lethal vortex of politics, espionage, rebellion, and international intrigue.
As war rages in Europe, a new power rises in America. And the people Sam thinks he knows best — his wife, his brother, his colleagues — reveal new identities. In a formerly close-knit city by the sea, where no one is above suspicion and no one is safe, a global summit is about to take place. On that day, history will be changed. And millions of people will live or die, all because Sam Miller has been a very good cop — faced with a very bad choice.
In 1943, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sam Miller is a cop supporting a family and trying to stay on the right side of his boss, the law, and his conscience. Then a body is found by the railroad tracks, a number tattooed on the victim's wrist. It is a case Sam could walk away from. It is a case he will be ordered to drop. And it is case that leads him into a lethal vortex of politics, espionage, rebellion, and international intrigue.
As war rages in Europe, a new power rises in America. And the people Sam thinks he knows best — his wife, his brother, his colleagues — reveal new identities. In a formerly close-knit city by the sea, where no one is above suspicion and no one is safe, a global summit is about to take place. On that day, history will be changed. And millions of people will live or die, all because Sam Miller has been a very good cop — faced with a very bad choice.
533 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
37 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 27, 2013
Amerikan Eagle by Alan Glenn, pseudonym for Brendan DuBois, is a murder mystery set in 1943. In this world Franklin Delano Roosevelt was assassinated in 1933 by Giuseppe Zangara in Miami, taking the bullet that killed Anton Cermak in OTL. In 1936 Huey Long becomes president and turns the United States into an isolationist, fascist, one-party dictatorship. By the time the events of the novel take place, the Soviet Union is the last nation fighting Germany, the United Kingdom having long since surrendered with Winston Churchill in exile.
The main character is Sam Miller, a probationary inspector working for the police department of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Desperate to support a family, he pays lip service to the current regime to ensure he keeps his job and does not join the increasing unemployed masses, or worse, end up in a labor camp. Like most murder mysteries, the story starts with the discovery of a dead body. Found by the railroad tracks, this body has no identifying marks except a number tattooed on the victim’s wrist. Sam is discouraged almost immediately by his superiors from looking too deeply into this case, but not wanting to drop his first murder case, he ignores their warnings dives deeper into the case. Not only does he discover that his family and friends have been living secret lives, but he also uncovers a global conspiracy that would put the lives of millions of people at risk if discovered. To make matters worse President Long will be meeting with Hitler himself in Portsmouth to sign a new treaty of trade and friendship.
I was sadly disappointed by this novel. It began just like DuBois' last alternate history novel, the Sidewise award winning Resurrection Day. In both novels, the main character is a good guy (with a dark secret) who is just trying to do his job in a United States that is far from a democracy (with plenty of 1984 references thrown in for effect). Discouraged by the powers at be at every turn, the main character nevertheless ends up solving the mystery and uncovers several conspiracies in the process. Perhaps that is why DuBois used a pseudonym, since he did not want people comparing this novel with his last novel-lengthed work of alternate history.
While the ending of this novel was not as uplifting as Resurrection Day, it nevertheless tried to wrap everything up while leaving the reader with hope for this alternate timeline. This hope, however, seems unrealistic and the reader is left shaking his head at the naivity of Miller. Still I guess it is better than a more depressing, but realistic, ending the reader would have got instead.
The point of divergence and the events thereafter also are implausible. Despite DuBois' explanation at the end of the novel, I just do not believe that Americans would be willing to ignore the more than century long history of democractic government. Even if the Democrats of the 1930s are vastly different from the Democrats of today, it is hard to believe they would become transformed into the Nazis so quickly. The Great Depression, while a traumatic time period for most Americans, would have to be a lot worse to lead to a United States that was willing to ally itself with Axis powers.
I will give DuBois points for at least crafting a compelling dystopia with some present day references scattered throughout the novel that allows the reader to make comparisons between our current history and this one, but as a plausible atlernate history this book failed to live up to my expectations.
The main character is Sam Miller, a probationary inspector working for the police department of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Desperate to support a family, he pays lip service to the current regime to ensure he keeps his job and does not join the increasing unemployed masses, or worse, end up in a labor camp. Like most murder mysteries, the story starts with the discovery of a dead body. Found by the railroad tracks, this body has no identifying marks except a number tattooed on the victim’s wrist. Sam is discouraged almost immediately by his superiors from looking too deeply into this case, but not wanting to drop his first murder case, he ignores their warnings dives deeper into the case. Not only does he discover that his family and friends have been living secret lives, but he also uncovers a global conspiracy that would put the lives of millions of people at risk if discovered. To make matters worse President Long will be meeting with Hitler himself in Portsmouth to sign a new treaty of trade and friendship.
I was sadly disappointed by this novel. It began just like DuBois' last alternate history novel, the Sidewise award winning Resurrection Day. In both novels, the main character is a good guy (with a dark secret) who is just trying to do his job in a United States that is far from a democracy (with plenty of 1984 references thrown in for effect). Discouraged by the powers at be at every turn, the main character nevertheless ends up solving the mystery and uncovers several conspiracies in the process. Perhaps that is why DuBois used a pseudonym, since he did not want people comparing this novel with his last novel-lengthed work of alternate history.
While the ending of this novel was not as uplifting as Resurrection Day, it nevertheless tried to wrap everything up while leaving the reader with hope for this alternate timeline. This hope, however, seems unrealistic and the reader is left shaking his head at the naivity of Miller. Still I guess it is better than a more depressing, but realistic, ending the reader would have got instead.
The point of divergence and the events thereafter also are implausible. Despite DuBois' explanation at the end of the novel, I just do not believe that Americans would be willing to ignore the more than century long history of democractic government. Even if the Democrats of the 1930s are vastly different from the Democrats of today, it is hard to believe they would become transformed into the Nazis so quickly. The Great Depression, while a traumatic time period for most Americans, would have to be a lot worse to lead to a United States that was willing to ally itself with Axis powers.
I will give DuBois points for at least crafting a compelling dystopia with some present day references scattered throughout the novel that allows the reader to make comparisons between our current history and this one, but as a plausible atlernate history this book failed to live up to my expectations.
December 18, 2023
WHAT IF FDR HAD NEVER SERVED AS PRESIDENT?
Brace yourself. It’s 1943. King Edward VIII sits on the English throne, courtesy of Adolf Hitler. Winston Churchill leads the British government-in-exile from New York City. All Europe marches to Nazi orders, save the Soviet Union. There, savage fighting continues for the third consecutive year. And in the United States, former Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long is serving his second term as President. He presides over an antisemitic, pro-Nazi regime that has erected a vast nationwide network of labor camps. There, tens of thousands of underfed and overworked dissidents, immigrants, labor organizers, journalists, and Communists languish without hope of mercy. And among them is Tony Miller, the rebellious brother of Probationary Inspector Sam Miller of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire police department. The fate of these two young men is central to the events in Brendan DuBois’s thoughtful alternate history detective story, Amerikan Eagle.
PARALLEL PLOTLINES POINTING TOWARD A SHATTERING CONCLUSION
Sam Miller leads a precarious life, his fate balanced between the whims of two men who hate each other. His boss, City Marshal (police chief) Harold Hanson, threatens to yank away his probationary status as the force’s sole Detective Inspector if he doesn’t toe the line—the Party line. Huey Long’s Party, the country’s only remaining political party. And his father-in-law, Portsmouth Mayor Lawrence Young, despises him, thinking him a poor match for his daughter and forever looking for ways to undermine him. And when a body turns up on the railroad tracks—Sam’s first-ever murder case—the danger multiplies. His dogged insistence on pursuing the case to the end risks setting off a dangerous reaction from both men. Neither wants him to solve the case.
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing elsewhere. A man is slowly working his way through the streets of Portsmouth on a mysterious mission. From time to time he meets with coconspirators, but the mission remains unknown to us. And it won’t become clear until days later when a monumental meeting takes place in Portsmouth: a summit between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Huey Long on the site of the Navy Yard where Teddy Roosevelt negotiated the peace treaty in 1905 that won him the Nobel Prize.
A JARRING LOOK BACK AT THE 1940S
Eighty years ago the United States was a very different place—in reality, and not just in this alternate history. For one thing, there were 200 million fewer people living here. And, as the novel indicates, you could easily pronounce practically everyone’s name. The characters have Anglo-Saxon, Irish, or Italian names, with a smattering of Slavic thrown in for good measure. (The story is set in New England. Precious few Scandinavians and almost no Latinos.) Why? Action in the novel takes place two decades before the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which opened the floodgates to migrants from Latin America and Asia.
A WORD ABOUT THE WRITING STYLE
Writing style? There is no style to the prose in this novel. It’s the most colorless example of the use of the English language that I’ve come across since . . . well, since I read Curious George as a five-year-old. Amerikan Eagle works beautifully as an alternate history detective story. DuBois has plotted it skillfully. The characters are complex and believable, even the bad guys. And the story is suspenseful and chock full of surprises. But in no way would I describe this book as a pleasure to read.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brendan DuBois has written 28 novels and more than 180 short stories in the mystery and suspense genre. Amerikan Eagle is one of his two novels of alternate history. The first of those two, Resurrection Day, is his best known work. DuBois was born in 1959 in Dover, New Hampshire, not far from Portsmouth, where this novel is set.
Brace yourself. It’s 1943. King Edward VIII sits on the English throne, courtesy of Adolf Hitler. Winston Churchill leads the British government-in-exile from New York City. All Europe marches to Nazi orders, save the Soviet Union. There, savage fighting continues for the third consecutive year. And in the United States, former Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long is serving his second term as President. He presides over an antisemitic, pro-Nazi regime that has erected a vast nationwide network of labor camps. There, tens of thousands of underfed and overworked dissidents, immigrants, labor organizers, journalists, and Communists languish without hope of mercy. And among them is Tony Miller, the rebellious brother of Probationary Inspector Sam Miller of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire police department. The fate of these two young men is central to the events in Brendan DuBois’s thoughtful alternate history detective story, Amerikan Eagle.
PARALLEL PLOTLINES POINTING TOWARD A SHATTERING CONCLUSION
Sam Miller leads a precarious life, his fate balanced between the whims of two men who hate each other. His boss, City Marshal (police chief) Harold Hanson, threatens to yank away his probationary status as the force’s sole Detective Inspector if he doesn’t toe the line—the Party line. Huey Long’s Party, the country’s only remaining political party. And his father-in-law, Portsmouth Mayor Lawrence Young, despises him, thinking him a poor match for his daughter and forever looking for ways to undermine him. And when a body turns up on the railroad tracks—Sam’s first-ever murder case—the danger multiplies. His dogged insistence on pursuing the case to the end risks setting off a dangerous reaction from both men. Neither wants him to solve the case.
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing elsewhere. A man is slowly working his way through the streets of Portsmouth on a mysterious mission. From time to time he meets with coconspirators, but the mission remains unknown to us. And it won’t become clear until days later when a monumental meeting takes place in Portsmouth: a summit between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Huey Long on the site of the Navy Yard where Teddy Roosevelt negotiated the peace treaty in 1905 that won him the Nobel Prize.
A JARRING LOOK BACK AT THE 1940S
Eighty years ago the United States was a very different place—in reality, and not just in this alternate history. For one thing, there were 200 million fewer people living here. And, as the novel indicates, you could easily pronounce practically everyone’s name. The characters have Anglo-Saxon, Irish, or Italian names, with a smattering of Slavic thrown in for good measure. (The story is set in New England. Precious few Scandinavians and almost no Latinos.) Why? Action in the novel takes place two decades before the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which opened the floodgates to migrants from Latin America and Asia.
A WORD ABOUT THE WRITING STYLE
Writing style? There is no style to the prose in this novel. It’s the most colorless example of the use of the English language that I’ve come across since . . . well, since I read Curious George as a five-year-old. Amerikan Eagle works beautifully as an alternate history detective story. DuBois has plotted it skillfully. The characters are complex and believable, even the bad guys. And the story is suspenseful and chock full of surprises. But in no way would I describe this book as a pleasure to read.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brendan DuBois has written 28 novels and more than 180 short stories in the mystery and suspense genre. Amerikan Eagle is one of his two novels of alternate history. The first of those two, Resurrection Day, is his best known work. DuBois was born in 1959 in Dover, New Hampshire, not far from Portsmouth, where this novel is set.
January 17, 2024
This book starts off as an interesting alternate WWII history. Similar to The Man in the High Castle, Germany and Japan are triumphant. Here, however, the US remains strong, if neutral, and the USSR remains in the fight. By the 1940s, the US President is Huey Long and the country is in the grip of fascism almost as bad as Germany or Italy. So far, so good. Then the book gets interesting.
DuBois envelopes his characters in very messy moral dilemmas. He does a nice job of teasing out those dilemmas and finding ways for the characters to make their way through them.
The fascist US described here once seemed impossible - it could never happen here. But recent real events in our nation, especially at the State level, show not only that it could happen here but that it is happening here. DuBois presents a chilling picture that we should all take a hard look at before November 2024.
The audio version is well done. Lots of sound effects. People on the phone sound distant, people on the radio sound tinny. Gunshots are real, not just bang bang.
DuBois envelopes his characters in very messy moral dilemmas. He does a nice job of teasing out those dilemmas and finding ways for the characters to make their way through them.
The fascist US described here once seemed impossible - it could never happen here. But recent real events in our nation, especially at the State level, show not only that it could happen here but that it is happening here. DuBois presents a chilling picture that we should all take a hard look at before November 2024.
The audio version is well done. Lots of sound effects. People on the phone sound distant, people on the radio sound tinny. Gunshots are real, not just bang bang.
June 4, 2025
5 stars, but...
This was a hard choice. The story was great, but the typos were all over. They were weird as well. RN became M, M became H, l became 1. It was almost as if a very hard to read font was used and scanned, or a handwritten manuscript was OCR'd. It distracted from a great alternative history novel. If it wasn't such a good story, I'd give it a three. I'm hesitant to dig further into the author's works because of the sheer number of errors though.
This was a hard choice. The story was great, but the typos were all over. They were weird as well. RN became M, M became H, l became 1. It was almost as if a very hard to read font was used and scanned, or a handwritten manuscript was OCR'd. It distracted from a great alternative history novel. If it wasn't such a good story, I'd give it a three. I'm hesitant to dig further into the author's works because of the sheer number of errors though.
May 26, 2019
If you loved Fatherland - read this!
Brendan Dubois is a master of ‘what if’ fiction - his alternative reality is scarily possible, and has echoes of current political events unfolding throughout democracies worldwide. This is a thrilling ride - where no one is as they seem, all told in his customary tight prose that drives you to the next page and chapter.
Brendan Dubois is a master of ‘what if’ fiction - his alternative reality is scarily possible, and has echoes of current political events unfolding throughout democracies worldwide. This is a thrilling ride - where no one is as they seem, all told in his customary tight prose that drives you to the next page and chapter.
April 25, 2019
Nope
Considering the number of typos there's no way this was properly reviewed. Sham work tarnished a so so alt history. I'm thinking Amazon and it's Kindle are not worth the shoddy product it pedals.
Considering the number of typos there's no way this was properly reviewed. Sham work tarnished a so so alt history. I'm thinking Amazon and it's Kindle are not worth the shoddy product it pedals.
December 21, 2020
Effect of 1930s politics on individuals. Sam is a good US cop in alt history. Huey Long is dictator after FDR shot, other countries screwed too. FBI, Gestapo officially take Sam's first homicide: European starved, neck snapped, blue number tattoo on wrist. Can Sam's family, world survive?
April 4, 2022
Starts quite disappointingly, slow and with a protagonist that acts on awfully illogical instincts.
Then from around 50% to 80% it seems to get even worse and just plods along in the same manner
Then it explodes and, while the very very end is just ok, it does deliver some interesting twists
Then from around 50% to 80% it seems to get even worse and just plods along in the same manner
Then it explodes and, while the very very end is just ok, it does deliver some interesting twists
May 4, 2018
Fast paced alternative history crime story set during 1943 with several plot twists and turns.
June 9, 2023
An amazing book.
I love Brendan Dubois's and American Eagle is another excellent read. It is a very believable what could have been book that makes it an unputdownable page-turner.
I love Brendan Dubois's and American Eagle is another excellent read. It is a very believable what could have been book that makes it an unputdownable page-turner.
May 26, 2015
Huey Long, who is ultimately the villain behind this work once said that if tyranny comes to America it will come waving an American flag. Alan Glenn, the pen name of mystery writer Brendon DuBois postulates a world where Huey Long is not assassinated but Franklin Roosevelt is. Long subsequently becomes president, moves into the isolationist camp, allows France, and Britain to fall to the Nazis, and the Soviet Union to move into a death struggle against Hitler's hordes. Meanwhile of course after John Nance Garner's disastrous presidency, the Depression has gotten worse with no New Deal to repair the economy unemployment is at 40%, and hobo camps lie at the outskirts of major cities, and fascism slowly creeps into American life. The story itself is a murder mystery as Sam Miller-a film noir-esque good cop in a bad time, works to solve a mysterious murder of an unknown man seemingly dropped from the sky, the murder investigation brushes up too close to the powers that be who conspire to first cover up the murder, and then to do away with Miller, his family and his rabble rouser of a brother amongst other things.
Glenn would have been wise I think to listen more fully to the words of The Kingfish, when constructing this novel since his version of fascist America takes more from Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler than appears plausible. In other words there is no American take on fascism, it has become just a transplant of the European model: there are labor camps, power struggles within the system, one party rule, suspensions of the constitution, secret police, suppression of left wing politics all the staples of a standard Nazi thriller. Not that many of those aren't plausible of course, and not that it didn't effect me personally because at times Glenn did indeed make it seem very realistic and very pressing, but it did not feel American. On that note, the portrayal of Huey Long did not match up well with the historical Long, who certainly had no time for opinions opposing his own, but did not I feel have it in him to plunge the country into fascism so quickly, or totally as seen here. I personally would expect something from Lindbergh, or Coughlin, even Robert Taft but from Long it seems far too unrealistic. Overall though Glenn's writing is crisp, well done, the story itself minus my qualms was exceptionally interesting and urgent and all the while if not perfect in the genre of alternate history certainly a worthwhile read for fans of the genre.
Glenn would have been wise I think to listen more fully to the words of The Kingfish, when constructing this novel since his version of fascist America takes more from Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler than appears plausible. In other words there is no American take on fascism, it has become just a transplant of the European model: there are labor camps, power struggles within the system, one party rule, suspensions of the constitution, secret police, suppression of left wing politics all the staples of a standard Nazi thriller. Not that many of those aren't plausible of course, and not that it didn't effect me personally because at times Glenn did indeed make it seem very realistic and very pressing, but it did not feel American. On that note, the portrayal of Huey Long did not match up well with the historical Long, who certainly had no time for opinions opposing his own, but did not I feel have it in him to plunge the country into fascism so quickly, or totally as seen here. I personally would expect something from Lindbergh, or Coughlin, even Robert Taft but from Long it seems far too unrealistic. Overall though Glenn's writing is crisp, well done, the story itself minus my qualms was exceptionally interesting and urgent and all the while if not perfect in the genre of alternate history certainly a worthwhile read for fans of the genre.
November 18, 2011
This novel rewrites history during WWII in the United States. In 1943 in Portsmouth N.H., a strnger is found lying near the railroad tracks. Sam Miller, local cop investigates, finding a strange tattoo on the man's wrist. This incident occur not long before the proposed summit of Hitler and President Huey Long inthe same city. Roosevelt has been assassinated and Long elected. Hitler and Long have already arranged a deal whereby Hitler will send some of the Jews he has put in concentration camps to the U.S.. Long views these unfortunate individuals as a source of labor. The death of the stranger is obviously related.
January 3, 2012
This is an interesting book, so far, about a murder in New Hampshire during WW II, but with an alternative history spin with changes in the US and it's stance during the war. Very intriguing and really makes you think about protecting our own civil liberties.
October 28, 2016
Frightening how easy this could have been our history
A very well thought out tale. Chilling to think how close we could have been to living under fascism. A must for anyone who likes "what ifs?". Great read !!
A very well thought out tale. Chilling to think how close we could have been to living under fascism. A must for anyone who likes "what ifs?". Great read !!
October 31, 2011
Drenched way too much in oppressive atmosphere, and the story plods along. Innovative alternate history, though.
April 3, 2016
Gives the reader a look at what life would be like if a arrogant bully becomes President of the United States...
May 25, 2016
Not quite as good as Resurrection Day, but pretty good.
September 17, 2015
very well done, liked the inside angles
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews