{"id":6443,"date":"2025-05-30T06:36:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6443"},"modified":"2025-05-30T06:36:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:36:58","slug":"ashley-weaver-one-final-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ashley-weaver-one-final-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Weaver: One Final Turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electra McDonnell #5<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the last instalment in Ashley Weaver\u2019s series following the exploits of safecracker turned intelligence agent Electra McDonnell in 1940s London. She came to live there with her \u201clocksmith\u201d (and safecracker) uncle after both her parents died. Her cousins Colm and Toby are like brothers to her, but since the start of the war Toby has been missing, feared dead.<\/p>\n

Electra has a real pall of gloom hanging over her in general \u2013 not only because of the war, but also because her last assignment with one Major Ramsey ended with him injured and her dismissed.\u00a0 Realizing too late that she was actually in love with him, she\u2019s trying mightily to forget the whole fiasco. When an assignment comes through via Archie Blandings, an underling of Ramsey\u2019s, she\u2019s off to Lisbon, hoping to locate her long lost cousin.\u00a0 Much to Electra\u2019s discomfort, it turns out that Ramsey is a part of the operation as well.<\/p>\n

Since Portugal was neutral during WWII, cities like Lisbon were full of people from every country in Europe and an enormous amount of espionage operations took place there. Electra and Archie meet up with Ramsey, vigilant for spies surveilling them as well as the contacts they\u2019ll need to locate Toby and any other refugees on the run, but a series of deaths and double crosses make things very tricky for them.<\/p>\n

As this is the final book in the series, Weaver must wrap up some long running storylines,\u00a0 one being the search for Toby, another the question of the guilt or innocence of Electra\u2019s mother, who died in prison, accused of murdering her father, and, most prominent in this book, the romantic destiny of Electra herself.\u00a0 Even though she still carries a torch for him, she\u2019s convinced things are finished with Ramsey, and hometown honey Felix (working undercover himself) is again in the romantic mix.<\/p>\n

In my opinion this was not the strongest entry in this very enjoyable series, the best of which focuses on Electra\u2019s lock picking abilities.\u00a0 She uses those skills some here, and remains brave and intrepid, but this book is in the main a romance, with some tricky espionage elements.<\/p>\n

Weaver manages to skilfully tie up all her loose threads, and her wonderful storytelling moves things along briskly. By this point in the series the reader has built up a lot of affection for Electra and hopes the best for her.\u00a0 I enjoyed the read but I will say nothing in it really surprised me.\u00a0 In my opinion it didn\u2019t quite match up to Susan Elia MacNeal\u2019s masterful wrap up of her Maggie Hope series, The Last Hope,<\/em> which also took place in Lisbon.<\/p>\n

That said, I won\u2019t deny shedding a tear or two at the conclusion, and found this One Final Turn<\/em> an enjoyable read, if not my favorite in this generally engaging series.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Electra McDonnell #5 This is the last instalment in Ashley Weaver\u2019s series following the exploits of safecracker turned intelligence agent Electra McDonnell in 1940s London. She came to live there with her \u201clocksmith\u201d (and safecracker) uncle after both her parents died. Her cousins Colm and Toby are like brothers to her, but since the start … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[713,1180,2125,2126,100,2124,1276,427,149],"class_list":["post-6443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-ashley-weaver","tag-electra-mcdonnell","tag-lisbon","tag-lockpicking","tag-minotaur-books","tag-one-final-turn","tag-robin-agnew","tag-series-wrap-up","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6445,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions\/6445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}