"The FBI watched what Stout wrote and somehow turned his fiction into suspicious fact. Because, for example, of a story that appeared in the May 1940 issue of American Magazine called "Sisters in Trouble," he was labeled what might be called "prematurely anti-Nazi." A highly imaginative document from Los Angeles (correspondent's name censored) to the FBI's Communications Division in Washington claimed that the story was "either a deliberate attempt to convey a meaning other than the solution of a mystery story — or else the whole thing is full of coincidences.
The FBI monitored what Stout wrote, eventually linking his fiction to suspicious reality. For instance, because of a story published in the May 1940 issue of American Magazine titled "Sisters in Trouble," he was deemed "prematurely anti-Nazi." A document from Los Angeles (with the correspondent's name censored) to the FBI's Communications Division in Washington claimed that the story was either an intentional misinterpretation or a series of coincidences.