When Arthur Bernard Leckie (or ABL for short), joined the FBI during the early years of its establishment under the notorious J. Edgar Hoover, he seemed set for a meteoric rise among its ranks. There was no certainty, however, in post-war America. A fall from grace led to a job with the US Navy Intelligence, and then the eventual establishment of his own Private Eye business. His varied career had him posted in Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor, working at the UN during the creation of the UN charter, hunting communists for McCarthy, and rubbing shoulders with Marilyn Monroe.

When his grandson Scott Leckie starts to investigate his spotty legacy, he is confronted with several tantalizing questions: Why was ABL forced to resign from the FBI? What were the contents of the hundreds of files destroyed after his death? Just how intimate was his relationship with Hoover? Was his possible murder connected to Marilyn’s alleged suicide?

In SHREWD LITTLE SLEUTH, Scott Leckie paints an enthralling picture of the grandfather he never met—piecing together the story of his life from official FBI records, letters, postcards, newspaper articles, and family stories. The narrative is orderly, meticulous, and punctuated with scandalous accounts from his own days working for the UN. The author is very good at creating atmosphere, immersing readers in the precarity of the Cold War era—right in the middle of crooked law enforcement, ruthless mob bosses, and underhanded politicians. ABL seemed to have adapted well to this world, schmoozing, impressing, building useful networks, and collecting hundreds of blackmail files of such damning information that they had to be destroyed after his untimely death. There are also glimpses of real vulnerability that keep him from descending into caricature.

Unfortunately, by the end of SHREWD LITTLE SLEUTH, hardly any of the questions that initially draw the reader in have been answered. Scott Leckie’s writing is sparse on details, and it’s frustrating to read only passing mentions of his grandfather’s various cases and deputations. Perhaps the author assumes that the reader would be familiar with, for instance, the “famous Matteson Kidnapping Case” or “the Tom Neal-Barbara Payton-Franchot Tone Triangle,” and so does not explain what they’re about. Similarly, much is said about Hoover, “The Keeper of the Files,” and how much dirt he had on politicians and celebrities alike; but there is not one example of how he may have used this to his advantage. The chapter on ABL’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe discusses her final days, but, again, assumes that readers already know her story.

Understandably, a better picture of ABL’s shadowy dealings could not have been constructed with the evidence at hand. Still, adding more complete stories from the public record would have made the disappointment of the last chapter easier to bear.

Scott Leckie’s SHREWD LITTLE SLEUTH does an excellent job of illustrating the volatility of Cold War America, but it underdelivers on its promise to shed more light on the involvement of its subject in some of the more defining moments of the era.

~ Sakina Hassan for IndieReader