Legacy of Suspicion

About the Book

The Drug Abuse Commission in Washington suspected an art supply dealer, Peter Munroe, of drug sales in a university art department . When agent Doug Chase checks up on Munroe at his  home,  the elderly dealer commits suicide. The Commission investigates but remains baffled, instructing Chase to mark the case Open but Inactive.

In  June 1944 a Resistance Army was operating in the Vercors mountain region of eastern France. The OSS parachuted a US Ranger-trained liaison agent,  Paul Martin,  there instead of the locally requested arms and supplies.  Martin had some  adventures  and fell in love with a local partisan,  Odile.

Martin was captured by the Germans, severely questioned and sent to prison camp in July 1944.  It was possible for him to reveal information during questioning to protect Odile, pregnant with his child.  He was never known to have returned to the Vercors.

In the Spring of the present time, Chase meets Odiles grand-daughter Paulette at a French Embassy party in Washington. They are deeply attracted and she shows him her grandmothers war memorabilia. The agent dimly recognises a man in her newspaper photograph, checks it with Commission facilities, and finds that her grandfather, Paul Martin, may have been Peter Munroe.

During summer vacation, Chase and Paulette visit  the Vercors after her grandmothers death where he verifies his suspicion without revealing Peter Munroes

identity.  No one can  be certain of Paul Martins  revelation to his German captors of a hospital cave because there was an unidentified informer. The case of Peter Munroe is marked Closed.   Chase finds undeveloped roots in himself.

About the Author

Molly Grover Shallow was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1923 and grew up there, working for the Office of Scientific Research and Development at the University during World War II. She married and spent winters in Vermont and Ireland, summers sailing around France, England and Ireland with her husband. She holds a Norwich University degree and a United States Coast Guard license to U.S Merchant Marine officer. A retired professional photographer, she travelled in France and lectured at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. The Eisenhower Center for American Studies has written that the novel is remarkable. Molly Grover Shallow lives in Key West where her three children often visit.