Summer Storm-Prelude to Pearl Harbor

This book starts out in a rather unlikely place: an extremely hot high school gymnasium in Villisca, Iowa in 1939. The graduating class, albeit small is about to begin a journey that will take them to the back alleys of Berlin to the decks of the USS Arizona on December 7th, 1941.
Unbeknowst to any of the members of the audience of this graduation exercise is that their star place kicker, Randy Roberts is gay.
After the graduation, Randy's lover, Dexter, (a Jewish boy from Omaha) tells him that he's accepted a summer job in Berlin working for William L. Shirer, a star reporter for the Chicago Sun Times. (Or so he thinks!)
In a series of fast-paced events, Dexter soon finds out that not only does he not have a job with William L. Shirer, but that he's about to become a spy on the Nazis!
Based upon the story of Odysseus in The Odyssey, Dexter's journey is filled with harrowing escapes, beautiful women and mean, rotten Nazis, (Are there any other types of Nazis?)
Meanwhile, back in Iowa, Randy is busy planning his marriage to one of the the town's most eligible girls and in trying to keep his homosexuality from a boy in the neighborhood that his family has taken in due to an abusive situation at his home.
Throw in excessive drinking, rampant carousing, and an unsolved murder and you are on your way to reading Paul Michael Frazee's stellar novel about one of the toughest chapters for 'The Greatest Generations".
Gerda Weismann Klein, recipient of an Academy Award, (Best Documentary, Short, 1995: One Survivor Remembers, said that, "... the story is skillfully brought down to the level of individuals who lived and suffered through those defining moments of the 20th Century. It's spine-tingling tales of intrigue, of espionage and counter-espionage make this a must read."