The Bootlegger's Secret
by Michael Springer
It's the summer of 1941 in Middleton, Minnesota. Eleven-year-olds Mark Penn and Swede Larson have built a treehouse along the river. School is out and the boys are looking forward to the arrival of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Fourth of July parade, and the baseball season of the Middleton Aces. Mark is the team's batboy and Swede a ball shagger.
One day while swimming in the river, they spot the hood ornament of a submerged 1931 Pierce-Arrow. Swede swims down, and inside the car finds an inlaid-gold cigarette case containing a music box, Turkish filter-tips and the photograph of a beautiful woman. Later, police recover the corpse of the car's owner, Eddie Knowland, local bootlegging kingpin and member of Al Capone's Chicago gang. Knowland and his car have been missing for eight years.
The cigarette case has a secret compartment containing Knowland's business records. Treasury agents want the records to prosecute corrupt officials bribed by Knowland. Chicago gangsters want the records for blackmail.
When the cigarette case disappears, Mark and Swede are caught in a deadly squeeze between the T-men and the gangsters. They are not even safe at home or in their treehouse. Summer vacation becomes a nightmare of shadows and ghosts.
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Mark Penn Goes to War: A Sequel to "The Bootlegger's Secret"
by Michael Springer
It's March 1942, three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to start World War II. Robert Matsui, his wife Rose, and twelve-year-old daughter Ann have moved from Bakersfield, California, to Middleton, Minnesota, during the two-month period when Japanese-Americans are allowed to voluntarily relocate from the west coast.
The Matsuis are refused a promised rental home by a bigoted landlord, but Joe and Fred Beck offer the family a vacant house on the Middleton Ridge near their residence. The reclusive brothers are under surveillance by the FBI as Nazis.
Twelve-year-old Mark Penn is playing war on the ridge when he happens upon the Matsuis, and sees Joe Beck give Mr. Matsui a Luger. Mark tells his pal Swede Larson, and they report their discovery to Police Chief Karl Morton, who is the local FBI liaison. Morton orders them to stay away from the Matsuis. The boys ignore him and soon become so enmeshed in the FBI's intrigue that their lives are endangered.
Mark is the batboy for the Middleton Aces. His best adult friend and former Aces' second baseman Red Collins is fighting the Japanese in the Pacific aboard the USS Yorktown. Mark is too young to join the real battle, but he hopes that he can aid the war effort by finding out who the Matsuis really are. He soon discovers that playing war can be a deadly game.
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Kaiser Brightman 082314
by Michael Springer
In mid-1944, a half-million German prisoners of war are working in U.S. factories and fields because military enlistments and the draft have caused labor shortages. Two hundred PWs are billeted in an old Civilian Conservation Corps camp on Muskrat Island in the Minnesota River at New Bonn.
Twelve-year-olds, Frank Warner, Jack Steiner, and Skeeter Stark stake out the PW camp from an abandoned cabin along the river. Frank's and Jack's dads are serving with the 3rd Infantry Division in Italy. Skeeter's brother is an Army Ranger in France.
Frank and Jack are Boy Scouts, and fluent in Morse Code; however, a series of mysterious radio messages intercepted in that format baffles them.
The boys build a raft and land on the island. They encounter a PW who drops a matchbook cover with the following strange words and numbers printed on the back: KAISER BRIGHTMAN 082314. The trio is drawn into a Nazi conspiracy of murder and sabotage that imperils many lives, including theirs.
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Red Rover
by Michael Springer
A Nazi soldier is rumored missing from a Minnesota prisoner of war camp in RED ROVER, Michael Springer's long-awaited sequel to KAISER BRIGHTMAN 082314. RED ROVER is the fourth in a series of World War II adventure novels starting with THE BOOTLEGGER'S SECRET and MARK PENN GOES TO WAR.
It's the summer of l945 in New Bonn, Minnesota. Thirteen-year-olds Frank Warner, Jack Steiner, and Skeeter Stark are hanging out along the river across from an abandoned German prisoner of war camp on Muskrat Island. One PW was reported missing at final muster. The boys spot something red moving on the island, think it's the escaped PW, and raft over. While they search, their raft is set adrift, and they find a warning note signed, "Red Rover." A series of harassments follow, but Red Rover eludes them.
Frank's and Jack's dads have fought the enemy through Italy, France, and Germany, and now after V-E Day are stationed with the Seventh Army in Austria. They expect to participate in the upcoming invasion of Japan.
Skeeter receives a posthumous letter from his war-hero brother, Buck, which directs him to a treasure map he found before going overseas. The letter was passed on to Skeeter by Buck's Ranger buddy, Wayne Hill, who helps the boys unscramble the bizarre map.
After several near-misses, the boys confront Red Rover, whose identity and background are more bizarre than the map. Risking their lives, they solve the secret of the map, and discover that the word treasure has more meanings than they imagined. World War II ends as Japan surrenders. Frank's and Jack's dads come home for discharge from the Army. Life in New Bonn returns to normal. Or does it?
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