If a spy novel with slightly older characters sounds like your kind of book, you may want to check out The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen. This book includes five former CIA operatives who have all retired to the same Maine community.
Basic Plot
Maggie Bird is a retired CIA spy. She’s moved to a small Maine town where four other retired CIA agents are living. It’s a calm, quiet community. Not a whole lot happens there, which is fine for all of them. At the beginning of the novel, a lady shows up asking questions about a previous case Maggie was involved in. That same lady ends up dead in Maggie’s driveway later that day. When someone shoots at Maggie, it’s clear someone wants Maggie dead. The only question is if it’s the CIA or someone from another intelligence agency.
How’s The Story Told?
This was a really well-written book. It’s told mostly in back-and-forth time frames, one happening now, the other happening 16 years ago. There are also a few chapters that take place a little earlier than that. There are sometimes multiple chapters in a row from the same time period. Generally, when reading books like this, I find that I really enjoy one of the time periods and I keep wanting to go back to the one. With this book, I enjoyed both the present chapters and the ones happening in the past. The chapters from the past explain what led up to Maggie leaving the CIA. The ones in the present let us know what’s happening now. I feel like the author did a good job transitioning between the different times. I was never confused if we were in the past or the present.
Was It Interesting?
This book has some good twists and turns. It left me guessing how it was going to turn out. Several things didn’t happen quite the way I anticipated. At times, I wasn’t even sure who was the good and who was bad. There were a few times when I thought that I’d figured out how a particular character fit into the story. Sometimes, I was wrong. This is the first book in a series. The next book doesn’t come out until next year, but I definitely want to read it when it comes out.
Warnings to Readers
There is some swearing in this book. While there’s not a lot, the f-bomb is probably the most common swear word in the book. There are a few mild pre-sex scenes. You know what’s going to happen, but you don’t get the graphic details. They are easy to skim over. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes violence and some scenes where characters are being shot at. I’d consider the violence level mild or lower medium for this type of book.
Final Thoughts on This CIA Novel
Without the swearing and a couple of scenes where the sexual content was more than was necessary, I would have given this book 5 solid stars. As it is, it had a really interesting plot. I like that we have older, retired CIA agents. Most mystery or suspense stories I read with older people trying to solve crimes present the older characters as inept or as getting in the way. I like that these characters were presented as capable while also not completely ignoring their physical limitations, which would make them unable to physically handle the challenges they could have easily handled 15-20 years ago.
I also like that this is not a book that has an entirely happy ending. There were people who died. There were situations that didn’t turn out happy. Our main character has suffered a huge loss in her life, and that loss shaped her into the person she was at the end of the novel. While I’m not a CIA agent and I have no real-life experience with the CIA, I feel like giving Maggie a bittersweet ending to the book felt true to how she would have lived her life.
