The Thief / Clive Cussler & Justin Scott / 408 pages

If you need total escapism, pick up a Cussler book...any Cussler book.  The Thief features Isaac Bell, a Van Dorn Private Detective, who helps to foil the plot of an insane German Colonel whose plot is to use talking pictures as propaganda to sway the Americans to stay out of the war Kaiser Wilhelm is planning.  Only problem, talking pictures do not exist so he must kidnap the scientists who are closest to making synchronous voice & film that is loud enough for an audience to hear and sounds like human voices.  In this book we get the feeling of what it was like in the early 1900's when telegraphs, railroads, derbies and Dusenberg's were the norm.  Suspend belief and enjoy yourself.