BEVERLY HILLS SPY

A beguiling tale of espionage and double-dealing in the years leading up to World War II.

He was known as Agent Shinkawa, a spy for the Imperial Japanese Navy. His real name was Frederick Rutland (1886-1949), a hero of early British aviation. As Drabkin relates, Rutland turned to Japan for work after having been passed over for promotion as one of the proletariat, even as another pilot “of a superior class…realized his skills were no match for Rutland’s.” Rutland had worked out practical solutions to launching warplanes from aircraft carriers, and, as early as 1920, the Japanese were both planning on using that new technology to forge a Pacific empire and preparing for war with the U.S. Rutland was particularly useful once he set up shop in Beverly Hills, plying pilots, aircraft manufacturers, and military officers with booze and letting them do the talking. Drabkin’s cast of characters is surprising: The bon vivant Rutland got actionable intelligence out of Amelia Earhart and had dealings near and far with the likes of Charlie Chaplin (the target of a Japanese assassination attempt), Boris Karloff (an unlikely but real counterspy), Graham Greene’s brother, and Yoko Ono’s father. It wasn’t long before the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence caught on to Rutland, who became a double agent to save his own skin, gaining protection from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI in the bargain. Both ONI and the FBI missed out on a trail of clues that might have prevented the attack at Pearl Harbor, in which Rutland was implicated enough to spend time in a British prison. Drabkin’s expertly narrated yarn, based on a trove of recently declassified documents, is constantly surprising, and it’s just the thing for thriller fans who enjoy kindred fictions of the Alan Furst variety.

Strap in for a narrative that demands a suspension of disbelief—and richly rewards it.