Review: "The Spy Coast," Tess Gerritsen

 

By Liz Soares

Lithgow Public Library in Augusta, Maine, has chosen Tess Gerritsen's latest, The Spy Coast, for its 2024 Community Read. That's why I decided to read it; I enjoy participating in the event. I wasn't sure whether I was going to like the book, but I wanted to give it a try.

 

I loved it!

This fast-paced novel is definitely a spy thriller, but it also features a group of retired CIA agents who call themselves “The Martini Club.” It’s set in a picturesque mid-coast Maine village that put me in mind of Lincolnville—and in Malta, Bangkok, Istanbul and the English countryside.

The contrast adds up to a winning combination.

Here’s the story. Maggie Bird, 60, is enjoying the quiet life in Purity, Maine. She raises chickens on her 19th-century homestead and enjoys her relationships with her neighbor, Luther, and his granddaughter, Callie; as well as fellow retirees Declan, Ben, Lloyd and Ingrid.

Suddenly, everything goes south. Maggie is threatened, then shot at. The body of a dead woman (who has been tortured) is dumped in her driveway.

Acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau tries to investigate, but she knows Maggie is not telling her the whole story. And why do these older newcomers to town—The Martini Club, she eventually learns—keep turning up? What can they possibly know about analyzing tire patterns at the scene of a crime?

Maggie’s tragic backstory, involving her work as a spy, is told in flashbacks, but readers don’t learn exactly why her life is in danger until the end. To uncover the surprising truth, Maggie must leave Purity, where she had finally found peace, and face her past in her old stomping grounds.

It looks like Maggie and "The Martini Club" will return in a sequel this year. I’ll toast to that!