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A review by thomcat
Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America by Howard Blum
2.0
Fictionalized account of the efforts by German secret agents to undermine US support for the Allies in World War I. The "first terrorist cell" of the subtitle seems like a stretch - this group was funded by Germany and there were covert terrorists and anarchists long before 1915.
Focuses mostly on three stories - fires on American ships delivering materials to the Allies; a murderer who planted a bomb in the capitol building and attacked JP Morgan Jr.; and a group trying to infect horses headed for Europe with glanders and anthrax. The last was the least covered, with many hints in the final chapter that the full story came out in litigation after the war - it would have been appropriate to have the full story here.
All three tales are intermingled to add "page-turning pace" but this really didn't work for me. One example - the story of Muenter's attack on Morgan mentions that after the attack there was an increased mistrust of Germans. What the author doesn't mention is that the well-publicized sinking of the Lusitania two months earlier probably had a lot more to do with anti-Germanic feelings. Dates were elsewhere ignored to my irritation.
I understand the individual threads have all been published elsewhere. I would recommend reading those instead of this.
Focuses mostly on three stories - fires on American ships delivering materials to the Allies; a murderer who planted a bomb in the capitol building and attacked JP Morgan Jr.; and a group trying to infect horses headed for Europe with glanders and anthrax. The last was the least covered, with many hints in the final chapter that the full story came out in litigation after the war - it would have been appropriate to have the full story here.
All three tales are intermingled to add "page-turning pace" but this really didn't work for me. One example - the story of Muenter's attack on Morgan mentions that after the attack there was an increased mistrust of Germans. What the author doesn't mention is that the well-publicized sinking of the Lusitania two months earlier probably had a lot more to do with anti-Germanic feelings. Dates were elsewhere ignored to my irritation.
I understand the individual threads have all been published elsewhere. I would recommend reading those instead of this.