When Helen left New York on a train for Los Ange­les in 1936, she was look­ing for a change of scene, plan­ning to stay with, and help, her sis­ter and broth­er-in-law in Glen­dale. Instead of orange blos­soms and a Hol­ly­wood dream, she finds her­self steeped in a world of book­ies, mob­sters, and a pro-Nazi under­world, plan­ning a head­quar­ters for Hitler on the Pacif­ic Ocean shore, that she must infil­trate on behalf of the Anti-Defama­tion League.