Espionage

Katherine Reay: The Undercover Bookshop

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This thoroughly enjoyable read is set in postwar Britain, and follows young Gemma Brown as she attempts to make a life for herself in the small Cotswolds village of Great Rollright.  In London, Gemma had been lonely in her boarding-house, and wanting to find a sense of community she couldn’t find in the big city, so she answers an advertisement for a shop clerk in Great Rollright simply because the job offers the perk of a bedsit. She settles into her new life pretty quickly, getting to know the villagers when they shop in the store, and developing friendships at the pub each night. read more

Kate Westbury: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

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Debut

Set in Oxford in 1951, this delightful first novel features an opposites attract type couple, Ginevra Bishop and Simon Braithwaite.  Bishop, Gin to her friends, is a well connected redhead familiar with the upper crust boys who have joined her at Oxford.  Simon Braithwaite, on the other hand, is a clever working-class veteran damaged by the war who has come to the campus in order to escape his ghosts (what we would now recognize as PTSD).

At that time, the after effects of the war remained inescapable, with both the student body and the faculty staffed with war veterans, all of them struggling with their own nightmare memories. As the book opens, Gin, searching for a study spot in the crowded Bodleian library, asks her favorite librarian, Tolliver, for a tip, and ends up next to a hostile and inhospitable Simon. Meeting cute, the two glare at one another over the top of their research tomes, and so far, so cozy.  It’s only when Simon and Gin discover the body of sweet old Tolliver at the moment he’s drawing his final breath that things take a slightly darker turn.  It’s murder, and the pair are soon recruited by British intelligence. read more

Allison Montclair: Fire Must Burn

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Sparks & Bainbridge #8

I just love this series.  It has two wonderful main characters, spectacular plotting, and, in post war London, a fascinating time period and setting, making it simply one of the best contemporary traditional detective series out there. In this outing, our two heroines, Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge, are tasked by English government intelligence to assign a woman through their marriage bureau (The Right Sort) to act as an agent as a means to discover if a certain diplomatic employee is loyal to their government or perhaps another. read more

Chris Nickson: No Precious Truth

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Cathy Marsden #1

Often when I read a book set during WWII, I imagine myself as the heroine of an exciting yet dangerous espionage operation, looking Hollywood glamorous the whole time.  Nickson offers readers a different, more workaday take in the person of Cathy Marsden, seconded from the Leeds police department to serve in the SIB or Special Operations Bureau, part of the military police. As the book opens, Cathy’s unit is joined by her brother Dan, who at the moment is stationed in London in the XX Committee, a part of MI5 which attempted to turn German spies in England into counter agents who would feed selected disinformation back to their masters. read more

R.L. Graham: Death on the Lusitania

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Patrick Gallagher #1

This book has a ticking clock hanging over it even without any of the machinations of the plot – it’s set aboard the Lusitania on its final voyage.  As each chapter is set to a day, you can watch, as a reader, the time ticking down to May 7, 1915, the day of the disaster.  While there’s a mystery to be solved, the almost larger one is which of the characters encountered in the story will be alive by the end of the book. And this is a very well conceived mystery.

Many, many books are set during WWII, far fewer are set during WWI.  This one takes place at a point when the U.S. has not yet entered the war (the sinking of the Lusitania, of course, will prompt this), but the characters in the novel are still possessed by the war and it hangs over everything.  Shipboard mysteries are traditionally a time away from the happenings of the outside world, but in this book many of the characters are connected to the war in some form or fashion. read more

Susan Elia MacNeal: Mother Daughter Traitor Spy

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In her Maggie Hope series, Susan MacNeal has seemed to be more and more interested in the US side of the outbreak of WWII (see The Hollywood Spy, 2021).  In this novel, a standalone, she pursues that interest, creating a terrifying account of Nazism in America in 1940.  Her central characters, mother and daughter Vi and Veronica, kick off the action with Veronica’s graduation from Hunter College in New York.  Veronica is looking forward to an internship at Mademoiselle magazine, but thanks to an unfortunate turn of events the internship is rescinded. She and her mother, along with her Pasadena based Uncle Walter (in town for her graduation from Hunter) make plans to move to California.  Uncle Walter is willing to let the women live in his beach house. read more

Erica Ruth Neubauer: Danger on the Atlantic

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Danger on the Atlantic is the third novel in Erica Ruth Neubauer’s series set in the 1920s, featuring American war widow Jane Wunderly and the handsome, enigmatic Englishman Redvers, the only man who might change Jane’s mind about remarriage.  As readers of the previous two books, Murder at the Mena House and Murder at Wedgefield Manor, will know, Jane was traumatized by her abusive first marriage and still has scars on her back.  She was relieved when her husband was killed in World War I.  For years she has refused to consider the thought of another marriage.  Then she met Redvers while working on a case in Egypt in the first book of the series, and their relationship has developed steadily through the next two books.  She cannot deny her attraction to Redvers, but she is still fearful about marriage, even though she knows he is nothing like her first husband. read more

August Book Club: American Spy

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Join our August book club discussion via zoom on Sunday, August 23 at 2 p.m.  We’ll e discussing Lauren Wilkinson‘s Edgar nominated American Spy.  All are welcome.  Email store (at) auntagathas.com to receive a zoom invitation. Here’s a description of the book, via goodreads:

What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? One woman struggles to choose between her honor and her heart in this enthralling espionage drama that deftly hops between New York and West Africa. read more