The Spy Coast
Book of the Week: The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen
Reviewed by our friend and avid reader Lotte
“When Tess Gerritsen moved with her husband to a small town in Maine, she found herself living among retired spies, hence the inspiration for her new book series, The Martini Club.
The first book in the series, ‘The Spy Coast’, was published in 2023, and the second one, ‘The Summer Guests’, was published just last month.
We meet the main character, Maggie Bird, a retired CIA spy, now living in Purity, Maine, where she leads a quiet life running a small chicken farm, selling eggs and joining a ‘book club’ with four other retired spies, who read books and drink martinis.
When a dead body lands in her driveway Maggie quickly realizes it is a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her and the body is linked to a haunting operation from the past that ended badly.
The Martini Club is activated and starts their own operation to solve the mystery. They might be retired, but they still have skin in the (spy) game.
The acting chief of police in the small town, young Jo, who has ambitions beyond being a small town cop dealing with drunk tourists, finds herself outrun and outplayed by the retired spies, but as the action picks up the spies find themselves needing to team up with Jo, and maybe also teach her a few tricks from their past.
The action soon takes Maggie on a tour around the world, while the story combines flashbacks to her earlier career with her current life in Maine, and the POVs also switch among other characters relevant to the story.
The writing is solid, the spy action combined with a small town feel makes the book well worth reading, and it surprised me that a book about retired spies in Maine could be so entertaining...
If you like the Thursday Murder Club but would like a bit more action and heat, then this is your book.”