open
Upgrade to a better browser, please.

Search Worlds Without End

Advanced Search
Search Terms:
Author: [x] Josh Weiss
Award(s):
Hugo
Nebula
BSFA
Mythopoeic
Locus SF
Derleth
Campbell
WFA
Locus F
Prometheus
Locus FN
PKD
Clarke
Stoker
Aurealis SF
Aurealis F
Aurealis H
Locus YA
Norton
Jackson
Legend
Red Tentacle
Morningstar
Golden Tentacle
Holdstock
All Awards
Sub-Genre:
Date Range:  to 

Josh Weiss


Beat the Devils

Morris Baker: Book 1

Josh Weiss

An inventive, page-turning crime thriller which envisions a world in which the Red Scare never ended...

USA, 1958. President Joseph McCarthy sits in the White House, elected on a wave of populist xenophobia and barely-concealed anti-Semitism. The country is in the firm grip of McCarthy's Hueys, a secret police force evolved from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hollywood's sparkling vision of the American dream has been suppressed; its remaining talents forced to turn out endless anti-communist propaganda.

LAPD detective Morris Baker--a Holocaust survivor who drowns his fractured memories of the unspeakable in schnapps and work--is called to the scene of a horrific double-homicide. The victims are John Huston, a once-promising but now forgotten film director, and an up-and-coming young journalist named Walter Cronkite. Clutched in the hand of one of the dead men is a cryptic note containing the phrase "beat the devils" followed by a single name: Baker. Did the two men die in an attack fueled by better-dead-than-red sentiment, as the Hueys are quick to conclude, or were they murdered in a cover-up designed to protect--or even set in motion--a secret plot connected to Baker's past?

In a country where terror grows stronger by the day, and paranoia rises unchecked, Baker is determined to find justice for two men who raised their voices in a time when free speech comes at the ultimate cost. In the course of his investigation, Baker stumbles into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the halls of power and uncovers a secret that could destroy the City of Angels--and the American ideal itself.

Sunset Empire

Morris Baker: Book 2

Josh Weiss

The Korean War rages on in this thrilling alternate history sequel to Beat the Devils: Morris Baker, now a private investigator, must solve a missing persons case in the midst of an endless battle.

December, 1959: The Korean War rages on.

Protesting the bloody conflict, a Korean-American man by the name of William Yang suddenly blows himself up in the middle of a Los Angeles department store just before Christmas, which leads the U.S. government to reopen the internment camps used during World War II. President Joseph McCarthy's America has never been more on edge, paranoid, and above all, dangerous.

Several weeks later, a woman hires Morris Baker, now working as a private investigator, to track down her missing husband -- Henry Kissinger -- who may have a shadowy connection to Yang's purported terrorist attack. The ensuing investigation for the missing State Department consultant working for Vice President Richard Nixon sends Baker on another thrilling adventure of deceit, intrigue, sex, murder, and conspiracy where the safety of the entire world may hang in the balance.

Can't find the Josh Weiss book you're looking for? Let us know the title and we'll add it to the database.