Published by: Thomas and Mercer
Rating: 5 stars
Highly Recommended
Tess Gerritsen has penned a super page-turner. The first chapter pull you in; by the second, one is completely hooked.
‘The Spy Coast’ is the first in the Martini Club series featuring a former spy and ex-CIA agents.
Former spy Maggie Bird is residing in the seaside village of Purity, Maine, the past behind her, a mission which was successful but tragic. She is living the life of a resident on a chicken farm, but is always apprehensive of the former years coming back to haunt. A history which forced her to an early retirement to this discreet life.
But the past always catches on. Comes back to haunt and terrorise. Opening up the not-so-healed wounds and memories creating an intense drama of suspense, fear, thrill and action.
A woman, possibly CIA, comes to question her one fine day and is found dead the next day in Maggie Bird’s driveway. And the drama unfolds. She is aware that the enemies of yesterday are back for vengeance, and begins a series of events propelling a chilling escape, and the past confronting the present.
In Purity, Maine, Maggie Bird is surrounded by her four former friends (all ex-CIA), who are out to prove their relevance and determined to protect their friend, Maggie from murder.
The book begins in Paris and travels to Maine, London and Bangkok in pursuance of life and death. Maggie Bird’s yester life of Danny, Philippe and Diana and Bella is engrossing.
Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau is showing promises of being a smart one in the sequels to follow. Only used to dealing with accidents and known mishaps and tragedies, the discovery of a body in Maggie Bird’s driveway arouses her sixth sense and her ability to try and ferret further.
The book’s narrative easily flits between the past and the present creating a web of intrigue, secrecy, and suspense.
‘The Spy Coast’ is born from the author’s discovery of being surrounded by ex-CIA people in Maine where she currently resides. ”I wanted to write about spies who don’t look like James Bond, but instead are like my neighbours……..until the past comes back to haunt them,” she writes in the author’s note and which she has repeatedly emphasised in interview’s post the book release.
But as the book is about spies and secrets, it throws up an interesting angle- of leading double lives. Of secrets stored. Of secrets unshared. Of the fear of revelations. And finally the revealed.
Preeta Chag 