Cover image of "The Enemy Within," an alternate history mystery

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Early in 1964 two aging men lie dead of gunshots in the back. They’re sprawled on the pavement in an alley in a seedy uptown neighborhood. One is J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary Director of the FBI. The other is Assistant Director Clyde A. Tolson, Hoover’s lover. But when police rush to the vicinity, they discover not two bodies but five, all of them FBI agents. The others are Hoover’s bodyguards and his driver. And when the FBI belatedly shows up, a turf battle erupts over jurisdiction. It’s resolved only when the two most senior men on the scene reluctantly agree to share the case. Both are crack investigators. And they’re both aware that, just three months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, all hell is going to break loose. This is the set-up in Katrine Kathryn Rusch’s clever and suspenseful alternate history mystery, The Enemy Within.

A cast of compelling characters

Detective Seamus O’Reilly had one of the highest closure rates in the NYPD. Like most cops in the city, he hates the FBI. And it’s his case by law. He knows that no matter what pressure they might try to bring on him, he’s going to lead the investigation. The most he will do for his counterpart, Special Agent Francis Xavier Bryce, is to share updates on the case. Of course, Bryce and his superiors will be working the case, too. O’Reilly can’t prevent that.

But these two men are far from the only players in this highest-of-all-stakes murder investigation. Bryce’s boss, Special Agent in Charge in the FBI’s New York Regional Office Eugene Hart is determined to suppress the information that Hoover and Tolson were gay. That they were is well known within the Bureau but not to the public. And they’d never live down the embarrassment if the truth got out. Because Hoover had led a virtual crusade against homosexuality.

However, other men, even higher in the government pecking order, are interested, too. Much higher. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. And President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two politicians, both ruthless and vindictive, see opportunity in this case. And they’ll stop at nothing to make the most of it.

The Enemy Within by Katrine Kathryn Rusch (2013) 290 pages ★★★★★

Winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History

Photo of J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, two of the victims in this alternate history mystery
J. Edgar Hoover and his constant companion and Assistant Director, Clyde Tolson, at a prizefight in 1936. They were still together in 1964, when this novel is set. Image: Posterazzi

Clashing agendas and secret files

On one level, The Enemy Within is a story of clashing agendas. Detective O’Reilly wants the truth to come out, whoever might be embarrassed by it. Special Agent Bryce wants to get back in the good graces of his bosses, who have sidelined him for having mouthed off once too often about how stupid they are. SAC Hart wants to cover up the truth. And the Attorney General and the President? Simple. Kennedy wants to avenge his brother’s death at the hands of the mob, which he knows was behind the President’s assassination. And Johnson wants to gain possession of J. Edgar Hoover’s secret blackmail files that have kept him on the job for forty years.

In fact, those secret files are at the heart of this story. Once word leaks to Washington, a titanic battle erupts among Hoover’s acolytes in the upper reaches of the FBI, the Attorney General, and the President. Watching what happens is a colorful example of how government actually works.

About the author

Photo of Kristine Kathryn Rusch, author of this alternate history mystery
Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Image: Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Katrine Kathryn Rusch has won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History twice as well as the Hugo, twice as well. But her writing ranges over multiple genres, including science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, and mainstream fiction. She has published more than forty novels, ten novellas, and five collections of short fiction. She has also coauthored nineteen other books. Rusch was born in 1960. She is American.

I’ve also reviewed three other alternate history novels about the assassination of President Kennedy:

This is one of the Great alternate history novels.

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