Fast Paced Enjoyable Book: Already Preordered Next In Series

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen is interesting from the beginning, but by page 23, I’m all in. Sixteen years ago retired CIA operative Maggie Bird moves into Blackberry Farm in Purity, Maine to raise chickens. From her farmhouse there’s enough elevation to see anyone coming from all sides, numerous high tech security cameras are installed, but after learning someone asked for directions to the farm, and her cellphone signals someone just entered her home as she’s still driving from town, Maggie’s in high alert. Another former operative, Diana Ward, has abruptly dropped off the radar, and the agency is concerned about anyone once associated with “Operation Cyrano” on the island of Malta. ”The Cyrano file was recently accessed by an unauthorized party, still unidentified. They want to know who did it, and why.” Another way to handle such problems, is eliminating everyone associated with the SpecOp who’s still alive.

Maggie has four close friends from her earlier CIA life who also reside in Purity, and one of them, Declan, 8 years her senior, convinces her to move there. When things heat up and a body is discovered on Maggie’s property (her earlier visitor), followed by an attempted assassination near her chicken coop, she finds herself staying in a guest room at his house until things cool down. Maggie spots an old photo, “This must be Declan and his mother, who died of a ruptured appendix when he was five years old. He scarcely talks about her, but I can imagine what his childhood was like, growing up motherless. I know he was shipped off to boarding school when he was twelve, because his diplomat father was too wrapped up in world affairs to be a proper parent, and I think of my own teenage years, burdened with an alcoholic father I could not wait to escape. It was another variation of being motherless, and neither version was a happy one.” 

When she comes downstairs for dinner, the other half of their retired CIA group shows up and Maggie notes, “I did not know that a meeting had been called this evening, but apparently, Declan sent out the Bat-Signal and here we are, five old spies with five lifetimes’ worth of experience. Retired does not mean useless. Everyone here has brought their individual tricks of the trade.” These four CIA friends have formed a group to assist in crime solving based on their unique skill sets: “The Martini Club.” Local police chief, Purity native Jo Thibodeau is not thrilled: “You and your friends are a puzzle, Maggie Bird, she thought. Not that she suspected the woman of being responsible for the dead body in her driveway, but the whole situation was, for want of a better word, odd.” Her suspicions continue with each passing day. 

The narrative throughout the novel shifts back and forth from Maggie’s action filled CIA days and events that may have led to her currently being targeted by someone, to the present day as new developments arise. All of these former agents are coming to grips with their maturity, experiencing new limitations. At one point as she notices she’s being tailed Maggie muses, “I gaze at the window, as if admiring the dresses inside. I see my own reflection, and it’s painful to confront my face as it is now. If the world had no mirrors, we could imagine ourselves frozen in time, our faces decades younger than we really are, but this window shatters that illusion. I am sixty years old, and I can see every one of those years in my reflection.“ she also thinks about her friends experiences, “I wonder if Ben and Declan are also feeling old injuries throb back to the surface; even so, they would never admit it. We’re three old soldiers, refusing to admit our gears are starting to rust.”

There is good plot tension throughout the book that keeps readers turning pages, as they become invested in the characters. Essentially the actions of the past provoke new and equally challenging actions into their current lives. Maggie and her team of friends travel abroad, back to some of their haunts looking for old nemeses and new evidence; things heat up when the young teen granddaughter of Maggie’s Maine next door neighbor disappears in an alarming fashion. Maggie finds herself in Bangkok, Thailand on a nighttime river navigation, “We set off up the river, the water stretching before us like a slick black ribbon. We motor past hotels and shopping centers and high-rises, the modern facade of an ancient city whose bloodstream is this river, along with its tributaries and khlongs.” Maggie faces hard truths about her past associations, “The advantage of having no family ties, no children, no husband or lover, is that it makes you invulnerable. Every person you love is a weakness in your armor. When you care about no one, you can be fearless because the world cannot destroy you, the way it almost destroyed me.”

After a grueling search for answers to the increasing death count, Maggie finds herself dealing with long suppressed emotions, “I have not cried in a long, long time, and now that I’ve started, I cannot stop. I cry for Callie, and for everyone else who has suffered because of me. For Doku and his family, for Gavin and Bella and Danny. Most of all, for Danny.” She agonizes, “The truth is far more complicated, but when you live in a world of mirrors, the truth is always distorted. Too often, it’s what we choose to see while ignoring all the inconvenient bits, the nagging details that distort our view. We crave clarity, and so we lie to ourselves. And what I’ve told myself these last sixteen years is that Diana Ward destroyed me, when in truth, I did it to myself.”

The good news is author Tess Gerritsen is currently working on the second book in this series, The Summer Guests: A Thriller (The Martini Club Book 2), release date is 3/18/25, and the preorder price is currently $4.99. I’ve already reserved my copy!