One Clear Call (Lanny Budd series, Volume 9)

Lanny and his third wife are vacationing in Florida when he is called on by his boss Franklin D. Roosevelt and sent on a secret mission to Italy via Berlin. His job is to persuade the Italian military and financial circles to work with the U.S. The reader gets a vigorous adventure story along with an encyclopedic history of the world, well informed, moral, virtuous, and exaggerated. Upton Sinclair's familiar villains are all here, international bankers, Fascists and the military. And Hitler of course who still thinks Lanny is working for him and has sense enough to listen to Lanny Budd. And as usual Sinclair presents American's in general as generous descent people who only want to establish prosperity and peace, although they have incredible wealth with technology that can wipe out whole continents. If only Lanny had had a little more time might have helped to prevent both world wars.