L. John Perkins

There never will be another band like the Beatles. In late 1969, a rumor began to circulate worldwide that Paul McCartney was dead. He had, the story went, been killed in a car crash three years before and had been replaced by a double. The "clues", allegedly hidden by the remaining Beatles in their subsequent music, have become part of the established folklore. But what if Paul McCartney really had secretly died in 1966? Then this is the inside story of the Beatles in their private world of 1966-68, and of a journalist in 1980 who suspected the truth. In November 1980, Daniel Ferro, a music writer and devout Beatles fan, receives an anonymous telephone call that John Lennon is threatening to go public with the truth about McCartney after fourteen years and that Lennon's life is consequently in danger. Familiar with the old "Paul-Is-Dead" rumors he"d dismissed as nonsense years ago, Ferro becomes intrigued by evidence he uncovers. His researches lead him to a sinister organization called the Charm Company who have manipulated the Beatles' affairs since 1966. Alternate chapters describe Ferro's advancing investigations into this extraordinary conspiracy during November and December of 1980, while the interleaved chapters provide a window back to the clandestine activities of the Beatles and their entourage in 1966-68. The story switches between the swinging London of the high sixties and the London and New York of 1980. So, what happened to the original "mop-top" Beatle? How was this all concealed from the public and the press? Did the Charm Company manage to silence John Lennon in 1980? And just who is this person masquerading today as Paul McCartney?