A book changed my life. Decades later, a photo did the same.

Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow’s gripping thriller about obsession and murder, was the blockbuster novel of 1987. At the time, I was a litigation partner in a humongous law firm’s Miami office, doing work that brought little satisfaction and had even less social utility. I represented Big Corporation X versus Big Corporation Y, or vice versa. It made no difference. I was leasing out my life in 15-minute increments, the shortest time the firm could bill. I wanted to emulate Turow, a Chicago trial lawyer, but I’d never written a word of fiction, unless you count stretching the truth in legal briefs.

Ignoring the sage advice “Don’t quit your day job,” I resigned my partnership and holed up in my study. No more expense account lunches at the Bankers Club; just me and the woodpecker hammering the bottlebrush tree outside my window. Soon, I felt like I was banging my own head against the wall. After a year, I’d written a novel, or more accurately, I’d typed 380 pages. No fame. No fortune. Just a stack of rejection letters. Scott Turow, what have you gotten me into? I nearly returned to law. Instead, I wrote another 380 pages or so. Four publishers offered contracts within two days. To Speak for the Dead introduced Jake Lassiter, a former Penn State linebacker turned lawyer who presumes his clients are guilty because it saves time. I had a new career.

Two decades and a dozen novels later, I stumbled across a 1931 photo of Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin in tuxedos. I was fascinated that the two most famous men of their era were friends. In the tradition of classic buddy adventures, I imagined a story of unlikely allies fighting a common enemy. But who was the enemy? A little digging turned up a fascist militia tied to Berlin that plotted to assassinate Chaplin and ignite an American insurrection. The FBI, too busy chasing communists, wasn’t interested.

So it’s Einstein and Chaplin vs. Nazis in America. But the two icons couldn’t take on an armed militia alone. I enlisted Sgt. Georgia Ann Robinson, the real-life first Black woman in the LAPD. We had our team—brilliant scientist, legendary actor, and trailblazing cop—battling fascists in 1930s Hollywood. Now that’s a story.

Writing contemporary thrillers didn’t prepare me for the demands of historical fiction. The period details had to be right. I also had to credibly portray our trio of heroes plus Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Goebbels, and American fascist William Dudley Pelley. Boxes of books and stuffed files soon overflowed my study. Five hundred hours became a thousand. I stopped counting. I had no one to bill. Did that vintage photo send me on a fool’s errand?

Eventually, it all came together in Midnight Burning, the most demanding book I’ve written. But also the most meaningful. It aims to entertain, yes, but it’s drawn from history and sounds an alarm. The struggle between freedom and tyranny never ends.  

Paul Levine is the author of 24 novels. His latest, Midnight Burning, was published in September.