Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Deception: A Joseph Gunner Thriller by Alan Parks

Deception (Pegasus Crime, 1 September 2026) by Alan Parks is the second book in the World War II thriller series about Joseph Gunner, late of the Glasgow police, seriously wounded on the front lines in France in the early days of the war. This story shifts location from Glasgow to New York during the week leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

At the end of the first book Gunner meets Nickerson, part of the espionage machine in the UK. Knowing his injuries are severe enough to confine his police work to a desk, Gunner accepted a job working for Nickerson to undermine the America First movement and to sway public opinion toward entering the war. A similar publicity campaign by German sympathizers seeks to reinforce isolationism, doing their best to keep the sleeping U.S. giant out of Europe.

Gunner and Nickerson are not above blackmail to achieve their aims. The opening chapter finds Gunner sending a beautiful young woman to maneuver a young Joe Kennedy into a hotel room, where a photographer can take compromising photographs. It works, Kennedy is willing to do anything to keep his father from seeing photos that might damage the senior Kennedy’s plans for his son. A day or two later, the young woman’s body is found in the river. Her death is ruled an accident but Gunner is convinced it was murder. He works an investigation into his duties.

Beside the Kennedys, Charles Lindbergh, jazz musician Charlie Parker, and Arthur Fellig, known for his photographs of New York City and crime scenes are among the real people who appear in the book.

While Nickerson meets with ambassadors and other diplomats to persuade them toward war and Gunner plants overly positive stories in the U.S. newspapers, they learn that a highly placed German spy has arrived in New York to sow dissension and plant a few bombs. They begin searching for him before he can do much damage.

The book is aptly named. Few of the people are who they say they are. Some change sides as they find it convenient. Gunner does not know who he can trust including Nickerson, with whom Gunner has an uneasy relationship. Nickerson comes from an elite social circle and Gunner has caught him in more than one untruth. But he knows there is nothing for him in Glasgow, so he stays with Nickerson out of financial necessity.

I am a huge fan of anything Alan Parks writes and Deception is not an exception. A complicated and fascinating and likely realistic portrayal of activities in the last days before the U.S. entered the war. For another look at the activities of the pro-war faction in the U.S. after Germany invaded Poland and before Pearl Harbor, see The Wealth of Shadows (Random House, 2024) by Graham Moore.

 

 

·         Publisher: ‎Pegasus Crime

·         Publication date: ‎September 1, 2026

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎352 pages

·         ISBN-13: ‎979-8897101566

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:  https://amzn.to/3Ssw2c6 

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.