Cleveland in 1941

I enjoyed Peter Jedick’s The West Tech Terrorist, which is a young adult novel. It takes place in 1941 at the start of World War II during the time when West Tech High was one of the largest high schools in the nation. The brink of war is the backdrop and Cleveland legend Eliot Ness gets involved in solving the mystery of the radio club’s German communications with contacts in Canada. A young Tatler reporter starts probing and looking for answers and becomes the hero of the story. What I liked about the book is the main character’s internal conversations, which told me a bit about Mr. Jedick, who I have to believe is a really good guy. He’s redeemed himself after his book Hippies, which I felt was mostly about how he could get laid during his senior year at Kent State, in 1970, on the brink of the May 4 shootings. Jedick brought in a lot of history with details about places and things that no longer exist in C-town like the cable car out to Lakewood and the bomb factory, and it didn’t feel like a history lesson, yet it was.