SECRET AGENT GALS

Hitler has risen to power in Germany, and America’s Public Hero No. 1, J. Edgar Hoover, suspects that the Nazi dictator is sending spies to the United States disguised as avant-garde artists. In order to sniff out the spy ring, Hoover seeks out two women known for discovering (and bedding) the finest artists in New York City: Baroness Hilla Rebay and Peggy Guggenheim. “We’ll put you through our Counter-Spy Training Program and you’ll learn how to smash Nazi spy rings,” Hoover’s subordinate and lover, Clyde Tolson, pitches them. “Publicity should be good for your museums’ images. Nothing wrong with making a buck.” The only problem? These two high-society women have an intensely personal rivalry that makes it difficult for them to be in the same room without literally punching each other in the nose. Hoover brokers peace between the heiresses for the sake of the country, and the two of them are soon serving the FBI as a dynamic duo aligned against America’s greatest enemies, including Hitler, Stalin, the Japanese, and various traitorous forces at work within the country’s borders. Soon, they are operating undercover at Nazi meetings, tailing spies, and preventing presidential assassinations on the floor of Congress. Along the way, they meet fellow masters of espionage like the handsome but chauvinistic Agent X-9; British spy Jonquil “Junk” Bond (father of James); and a pair of “Special Agent Super Sluts” named Bambi and Knockers. But do the two protagonists have what it takes to save the homeland from the most dangerous Soviet spy the FBI has ever come up against—a man known only as “the Pigeon”?

The inventive premise suggests a fun thriller set in the art world of the 1940s, and the prose is richly inflected with arresting details. But ultimately, this is a farce, replete with broad sex jokes, thin characters, and a ton of slapstick. (In the very first scene, Hilla flips Hoover over her shoulder for pointing his gun at her. He then slips on multiple banana peels.) Powers does not make much of an effort to render the historical characters recognizable in any way. Everyone is extremely horny, very violent, and speaks in the same gangster movie banter. Here, Guggenheim explains the Equal Rights Amendment to X-9: “ ‘Whaddya mean, an Equal Rights Amendment?’ a belligerent X-9 demanded. ‘It means that us gals get everything you guys get. We can do anything you can do and do it better, and we can go anywhere you go.’ ‘Ya mean ya want to go to the can with us?’ ” What’s more, the story is exceedingly episodic, and it is not until the final chapter that the author ties the various plotlines together. Given the extreme vintage of the humor and the book’s 410-page length, many readers will struggle to get to the end.