#Review By Lou of The Spy Coast By Tess Gerritsen @tessgerritsen @TransworldBooks @alisonbarrow @RandomTTours #TheSpyCoast #MartiniClub #BlogTour

The Spy Coast
By Tess Gerritsen

Excitingly, Tess Gerritsen has a new spy thriller – The Spy Coast. A new series from the author who brought us Rizzoli and Isles in books like The Surgeon. Find out more in the blurb below and my opinions in the review below.

Blurb

Maggie Bird is a lot of things. A chicken farmer. A courteous neighbor. And a seemingly average 60-year-old woman living a quiet life in bucolic Purity, Maine. She attends a weekly book club where she drinks martinis (stirred, not shaken) with her other retired friends. She’s a darned good rifle shot. And she never talks about her past.

When a mysterious woman turns up dead in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a calling card from old times. It’s been fifteen years since she ran assets for the CIA and managed Operation Cyrano, which blew apart her life and cost her the man she loved.

Maggie and her “book club” swiftly revert to espionage mode. These old dogs hunt as only Langley alumni can, burning a trail from London to Bangkok to Milan to stay one step ahead of those who want former agent Bird dead. Maggie knows that some parts of the past refuse to stay buried. And that sometimes an old spy has to give up her ghosts

Review

There’s been a few books where the characters are retirees and, although I am nowhere near that age and stage in life, I must say I am enjoying them. This one is also a rather good read. It’s a different style in some ways for Tess Gerritsen in that it isn’t as gruesome as her earlier writings, such as her Rizzoli and Isles series, but she retains the power to create suspense and holds you within the pages from start to finish.

The Spy Coast introduces retiree, Maggie Bird, who wants to settle down in the seaside town of Purity, Maine. She really gets in the retired lifestyle, she keeps chickens and attends a bookclub with rather a fun name the ‘Martini Club.’
All retired people, naturally have a past, a life before they reach that stage in life, hers just happens to be being a spy.
The quiet life of course doesn’t last long. There’s a body in Maggie’s driveway and not by any coincidence or accident, it’s personal and deliberate. Chillingly, it links to her past…
There’s espionage, action and a mystery to be solved.

The book is gripping from beginning to end with interesting characters. The isolated setting lends itself perfectly for a crime to happen. Add to that, great writing and characterisation of smart, quick witted former spies and this is a great read for the start of a new series. I look forward to reading more…

About the Author

International bestselling author TESS GERRITSEN began to write fiction whilst on maternity leave as a physician. She published her first novel in 1987 and has since sold over forty million copies of her books in forty countries.

Her series featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the television series Rizzoli and Isles, starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

Now retired from medicine, she lives in Maine and writes full time.

#Review By Lou of Topaz By Richard Robinson @TheTopazFiles @SpellBoundBks #TOPAZ @between_pr #BlogTour #Thriller

Topaz
By Richard Robinson

Get ready for an edge of your seat read and travel back in time to the 1990’s, Northern Ireland in this politically charged espionage thriller.

Blurb

It’s the summer of 1995. The US Peace Envoy, Fred Martinson, begins to broker a peace deal for Northern Ireland. The world holds its breath as the first tentative steps are taken. Jones, an 18-year-old from suburban England, has stumbled through education and yearns to be a football reporter. He is offered a place at Milton College, a former secretarial school with a clandestine partnership with GCHQ in seeking the communication stars of the future.

Before he knows it, Jones has been recruited, paired with Jenny Richmond, who is every bit his equal, and sent to Northern Ireland to undertake skills development and resilience testing with the Young Communicators Unit (YCU).Training becomes a matter of life and death when a group of trainee spies learning on the job are betrayed to their death, and their most promising member, Isadora Brown, is taken hostage. MI5 and YCU are sent a video of her reading demands by a mysterious organisation called Red Line.What if a group of young trainees were forced onto the frontline to deal with one of the most sensitive issues in UK history? What if political relations were so sensitive at the end of The Cold War, that only a group of deniable students could change history and keep super powers from ruining the first steps of a peace deal in Northern Ireland?It’s a race against the clock to find and free Isadora, and make sure the US peace talks aren’t sent up in flames.But who, exactly, is betraying who?

Review

Betrayal, espionage, this book is packed full of it all. The sharpness of the writing seers through the page, creating a compelling read.

Lots of people remember Northern Ireland in the 1990’s and this book sends readers right back there. There is the atmosphere of those times when politics was sitting on a knife-edge.
There is a peace deal to be done in 1995.

Jones hates heights and isn’t exactly enamoured by his job doing labouring. It doesn’t exactly suit him. Change that he wasn’t expecting came upon him. He is recruited alongside Jenny Richmond to go to Northern Ireland to be part of the Young Communicators Unit.

Tension builds with the sharpness of the writing and as the espionage becomes increasingly dangerous, to the point where a spy is captured. It all shows how challenging brokering a deal for peace is, as well as how precarious it is at times.

#BookReview By Lou of The Matchmaker By Paul Vidich @paulvidich @noexitpress @RandomTTours#Thriller #SpyThriller #TheMatchmaker #BlogTour

The Matchmaker
by Paul Vidich

Today I am pleased to be closing the Blog Tour for The Matchmaker by Paul Vidich, thanks to Random T Tours inviting me to review and to No Exit Press for gifting me a copy of this gripping book where the worlds of the KGB and CIA collide as the Berlin Wall topples. Discover more in the blurb and my review below as well as a bit about the author.

Blurb

Berlin, 1989. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door. Nothing about her marriage is as it seems.
Anne had been targeted by the Matchmaker – a high level East German counterintelligence officer – who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his ‘Romeos’ who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.
The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she’s the only person who has seen his face – from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office – and she is the CIA’s best chance to identify him before the
Matchmaker escapes to Moscow.
Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany. But what if Anne’s
husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

Review

Berlin, 1989, now seems eerie with what is going on today, minus the Berlin Wall, but read the book and the past and present almost seem to collide where spies are concerned…

The book takes readers into the world of the CIA, the KGB and a refugee committee . The book is gripping and intense with the espionage that goes on. There is also the chilling thought of what can go on in the world of marriage too.

The book has a map at the beginning, setting the scene at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anne Simpson is an American woman working at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee. She is in a marriage that isn’t your typical one as he disappears. It isn’t what she thought it was to the German. Little did she know she was a target by the networker of Stasi agents and their mysterious person known as The Matchmaker, who the CIA are in a race for time to find him because of his KGB links and before he reaches Moscow.

There is also the chaos in Germany that ensues the fall of the Berlin Wall to contend with in this action-packed book that has an even more chilling edge now than ever…
It’s sure to capture the imagination of John Le Carre fans.

About the Author

Paul Vidich has had a distinguished career in music and media. Most recently, he served as Special Advisor to AOL and was Executive Vice President at the Warner Music Group, in charge of technology and global strategy. He serves on the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers and The New School for Social Research. A founder and publisher of the Storyville App, Vidich is also an award-winning author of short fiction. His novels, An Honorable Man, The Good Assassin and The Coldest Warrior, are available from No Exit Press.

#BookReview By Lou of Lights Out By Natalie Walters @nataliewalterswrite @revellbooks @lovebooktours @igbooktours #SNAPagency #RevellBooks

Lights Out
By Natalie Walters

I have a review on Lights Out. It is Romance/Suspense. There’s terrorism, spies, betrayal and more in this first book in the series… Discover more in the explosive blurb. Thanks to Love Books for inviting me to spotlight.

Blurb

CIA analyst Brynn Taylor developed a new program to combat terrorism, and she invited members of foreign intelligence agencies to America to foster cooperation between countries. Now one of them, Egyptian spy Remon Riad, is missing.

Jack Hudson has been working for the Strategic Neutralization and Protection Agency (SNAP) for almost nine years and takes the lead in hunting down the missing spy. But he isn’t at all pleased to find out Brynn is involved. It’s hard to trust a woman who’s already betrayed you.

Every lead they follow draws them dangerously deeper into an international plot. Kidnapping, murder, explosions, poisoning—the terrorists will do anything to accomplish their goal of causing a digital blackout that will blind a strategic US military communications center and throw the world into chaos.

Can Brynn surrender control to a man who doesn’t trust her? And can Jack ever get over what she did to him? The fate of the world—and their hearts—hangs in the balance.

Review

Lights Out is packed full of suspense. It is gripping with characters that will keep many readers glued. Brynn and Jack pull you in so much that you end up so invested in what happens to them at each stage of the book.

Brynn is ambitious and career is just about everything to her. It means relationships outside her work for the CIA is hard.

Jack leads SNAP – a private agency assisting in government agencies.

Romance is sparked between these 2 characters, but there’s the question of can they trust each other or not. Jack isn’t too sure. They find themselves in so much danger though and attraction to each other is clear to see as magentism pull between them attracts.

There is suspense right to the end as there isn’t much time to stop a plan of terror coming into being as prospects of devastation looms and tension, away from some of the humour within the book, increases to keep readers hooked, after the initial scene-setting, which means you can begin to get to know the characters well.

#BookReview by Lou of A Beautiful Spy By Rachel Hore @Rachelhore @simonschusterUK @rararesources #SpyFiction #CrimeFiction #HistoricalFiction

A Beautiful Spy
By Rachel Hore

It gives me pleasure to announce that I am closing the blog tour for A Beautiful Spy By Rachel Hore. It shows the perilous and dark corners of the world in a mysterious and intense fashion. Thanks to Simon and Schuster for providing a print copy of the book and for Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to the blog tour. Find out more about the author and her book, as well as the rest of my thoughts in the review…

About the Author

Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she taught publishing and creative writing at the University of East Anglia until deciding to become a full-time writer. She is the Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of ten novels, including The Love Child. She is married to the writer D.J. Taylor and they have three sons.

Blurb

Minnie Gray is an ordinary young woman. She is also a spy for the British government.

It all began in the summer of 1928…

Minnie is supposed to find a nice man, get married and have children. The problem is it doesn’t appeal to her at all. She is working as a secretary, but longs to make a difference.

Then, one day, she gets her chance. She is recruited by the British government as a spy. Under strict instructions not to tell anyone, not even her family, she moves to London and begins her mission – to infiltrate the Communist movement.

Review

Minnie Gray is the main protagonist, with the book predominantely sweeping through the 1930’s, but also hitting on more modern times every so often. In 1928, Minnie wants more for her life and she certainly isn’t into meeting the Chamberlains, even though they were increasingly making their mark in the House of Commons. Life moves swiftly on from that time and readers learn about Minnie and her upbringing. What she hadn’t initially realised was that her connections then were to change the course of her life. Through her connections, she certainly becomes far removed from being a dutiful and stay at home wife. She has the opportunity to be a government spy, with the remit to spy on Communist Russia and to delve deeper into UK supporters of the regime.

There’s a bit of glamour that’s in the backdrop of a deeper, darker world and has her eyes opened wide to what the propaganda really means and where meetings take place in places where no one would normally suspect anything untoward could possibly happen.

The book shows how dangerous some politics are, especially by those with no alliegence to a country. It also sets out how people are taken in by clever propaganda. There are comparison’s that can be made into the book that can be made today and not only just with Russia, but with anywhere that has a more nationalist party. Although the book is set in the past and is about the dark, dangerous, yet exciting world for a fictional protagonist, there are some lines here and there that can be linked to certain aspects of today’s world and also the world of so-called unlikely leaders being voted into power. The book doesn’t delve too much into the roads of Communism, as Communism, as readers will know, doesn’t start there, there are other books that demonstrate this, this shows more when Communism has already got its grip.

The book is a slow suspense, but none-the-less gripping, especially for those readers who find the life of a spy and keeping identities hidden, fascinating. This book is a bit different from some spy fiction in that it doesn’t totally glamourise it and can show what an anxiety inducing life it can be and how challenging it can be, and yet change a person a bit, as demonstrated in the tastes of books Minnie used to like, compared to her tastes since becoming a spy as her worldly view has changed. The book isn’t all blazing guns and gadgets either. There is however, intelligence and a life of characters that seems plausible, and there is the wrangling of Minnie and a glimmer of desire to be set free by MI5 to lead a life outside spying, but she has proven herself well and to be valuable and stays, but things get ever more dangerous…. until a point when, finally, readers will be able to breath again, as can the woman, who led a double life.

Time moves forwards to the 1940’s and Minnie’s life has changed again, as does the pace and tone, but some histories in life can’t totally be erased and nor can the residue, certain parts of life leave behind…

This is, overall, a fascinating and intense book that leaves you wondering what next for this “Beautiful Spy”, at each turn…