Los Angeles, 1943. Up in the lush foothills of Hollywood, a woman floats lifeless in the pool of one of California's trendiest hotels. When American-born secret agent and British spy Maggie Hope learns that this woman was engaged to her former fiancé, John Sterling, and that he suspects her death was no accident, intuition tells her he's right. As she traces a web of deception from the Garden of Allah to the Carthay Circle Theater, she discovers things aren't always the way they appear in the movies--and the political situation in America is more complicated and dangerous than the newsreels would have them all believe.-- Back cover.