The Martini Club – Review – The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen @tessgerritsen

Can a former spy outrun the ghosts of her past?

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For years, I have known Tess Gerritsen as the author of the Rizzoli and Iles novels. I have watched the TV series for years, and continue to watch the reruns to this day. After reading The Spy Coast, I am thinking that I love The Martini Club, a group of ex spies that have settled in the small town of Purity, Maine.

They will come out of retirement, when Maggie Bird’s past comes calling. She tries to keep them out of it, but they could use a little excitement in their lives. They will travel from Maine to Thailand to Turkey to London to Malta, as Maggie tries to put her past to bed once and for all.

Jo Thibodeau, Purity’s police chief is on the case and she’s like a dog with a bone. She knows that Maggie is hiding something and keeps her eyes on the gang.

Maggie loves her life as a chicken farmer. Will she ever be able to return to Maine? Will they all manage to traverse the dangers and come out the other side in one piece? Well, it’s The Martini Club series, so what do you think?

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
4 Stars

A retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past in this fresh take on the spy thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement.

But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends—all retirees from the CIA—to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club” of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives.

Complicating their efforts is Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau. More accustomed to dealing with rowdy tourists than homicide, Jo is puzzled by Maggie’s reluctance to share information—and by her odd circle of friends, who seem to be a step ahead of her at every turn.

As Jo’s investigation collides with the Martini Club’s maneuvers, Maggie’s hunt for answers will force her to revisit a clandestine career that spanned the globe, from Bangkok to Istanbul, from London to Malta. The ghosts of her past have returned, but with the help of her friends—and the reluctant Jo Thibodeau—Maggie might just be able to save the life she’s built.

  • Genre: Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
  • 341 pages, Kindle Edition
  • First published November 1, 2023by Thomas & Mercer
  • Setting: Maine (United States), Bangkok (Thailand), Istanbul (Turkey)
  • Series: The Martini Club #1
Tess Gerritsen, © Leonardo Cendamo / Blackarchives

Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.

While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction. In 1987, her first novel was published. Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, was followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift”, which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Tess’s first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels since then have been: Life Support (1997), Bloodstream (1998), Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), and The Bone Garden (2007). Her books have been translated into 31 languages, and more than 15 million copies have been sold around the world.

As well as being a New York Times bestselling author, she has also been a #1 bestseller in both Germany and the UK. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon.) Critics around the world have praised her novels as “Pulse-pounding fun” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “Scary and brilliant” (Toronto Globe and Mail), and “Polished, riveting prose” (Chicago Tribune). Publisher Weekly has dubbed her the “medical suspense queen”.

Now retired from medicine, she writes full time. She lives in Maine.

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Giveaway – Trust No One by Glenn Dyer @XpressoTours @duffy_dyer

Trust No One
Glenn Dyer
(Conor Thorn Series, #4)
Publication date: December 11th 2023
Genres: Adult, Historical, Thriller

Loyalists meant to rid their country of a double-dealing collaborator. Instead, they created a threat that could destroy Allied unity.

Algiers. Winter 1942. Conor Thorn is devastated. He’s been fired from the OSS. His wife, Emily, has been fired from MI6. They allowed their morals to bend certain truths concerning the outcome of their last mission. Forever dedicated to defeating Axis powers, these skilled operatives jump at the chance to secretly help General Eisenhower deal with a political time bomb threatening Allied harmony and to redeem their honorable standing. To recover a rumored archive holding the truth about an assassination plot, they must travel deep into perilous Axis territory.

In the crosshairs of those determined to keep the information out of Allied hands, Conor and Emily fall victim to a violent assault. Though the resulting injuries leave him severely concussed and confused, Conor refuses to stand down while his beloved ventures deeper into danger.

Can Conor and Emily piece together a political puzzle in time to keep Allied unity from fracturing?

Trust No One is the high intensity, gritty fourth book in the Conor Thorn WWII espionage series inspired by true events. If you like heart-pounding action and white-knuckled tension, then you’ll love Glenn Dyer’s thrill ride through history.

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EXCERPT:

Conor stirred. His head was pounding like the bass drum in the US Naval Academy marching band. When he opened his eyes, one person stared back at him. The facial features were out of focus, as if he were looking through cheesecloth. He blinked. The onlooker’s mouth began to flap. He sat up, but his head almost exploded. A hand pushed him back. The cheesecloth dissolved, and he could see someone smiling at him. Given the slow shake of his head, Captain Jack Waddon was not pleased to see him.

“You are one lucky bastard, Conor,” Waddon said.

Conor looked around and recognized that he was back aboard Waddon’s Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina, the ship that had taken him, Emily, and Father Sean Sullivan to Italy on their mission to snatch Ettore Majorana. “What did you say?” He could barely hear his own words. “What the hell happened?” He reached for his throbbing forehead and felt a knot the size of a billiard ball. The surface of his forehead radiated a low heat.

“You were introduced to a blackjack swung by one angry MP, that’s what happened,” Waddon said. “As far as being lucky, well, that’s because Commander Butcher saved your butt. Told the MP that he’d take it up with Colonel Eddy himself and see that you, being nonmilitary, would exit the theater as soon as he could arrange transport.”

Conor rolled over onto his right side. The two men were in the plane’s compartment forward of the waist gunner’s area and aft of the flight engineer’s compartment. He reached for the back of his head and discovered a lump where the blackjack had ambushed him. “Stevens?”

“Hauled out of there to the field hospital. Out cold. Like you were.”

Conor groaned.

“Here,” Waddon said as he handed him a damp handkerchief.

Conor spied white gauze peeking out from under Waddon’s left sleeve. Waddon had been wounded three weeks prior when his PBY approached the beach near Anzio to exfiltrate Conor, Emily, Sean Sullivan, and Ettore Majorana.

“How’s the arm?”

Waddon waved off the question. “On the mend. Already back in the left seat.”

Conor nodded, then held up the handkerchief. “What’s this for?”

“Your ear. There’s some dried blood. Stevens must have landed at least one blow.”

Conor took the handkerchief and dabbed at his right ear, loosening some dried flakes but also coming away with some fresh blood. The bass drummer in his head pounded away. His head had seen better days.

“So you dragged my ass here after Butcher saved it?”

“Yep. Me and DiLazzaro. We thought you had some lead bars in your pockets. You were a load getting you in here.” Seaman Eugene DiLazzaro was one of Waddon’s crew and had wound up part of Conor’s team that went ashore at Anzio. The New Jersey–born Italian American had handled himself like a pro, particularly when the shooting started.

Conor’s stomach roiled. Bile crept upward. A mixture of oil, perspiration, fuel, and grease hung in the air, fanning the flames of his nausea. “Jack, do you have a bucket? I don’t feel too good.”

“Conor, don’t you lose it in my ship,” Waddon said, scurrying forward in search of something to keep his Catalina puke-free. Conor wondered what did the most damage: the blow to the back of his head from the blackjack or the oak bar that gave no quarter when his head collided with it. Waddon returned with a collapsible canvas bucket and shoved it into Conor’s hands. “Here, and don’t miss.”

Conor leaned over the side of the bunk and let loose a stream of vomit that filled the bottom two inches of the bucket. When he finally felt he had no more to give, he handed it to Waddon and lay back. “So you just happened to be in the area when the action started?”

“Hey, I was thirsty.” Waddon went aft and tossed the bucket’s contents out through the open starboard-side blister. He returned and sat across from Conor on the port-side bunk. “When I approached the bar’s entrance, I saw Butcher coming from the other direction. We were about ten feet from the bar when we heard a massive crash. That must have been Stevens doing a back flop on the backbar. Two MPs were already there. We saw one lower the boom from just inside the doorway. We both cringed when your head hit the bar.”

“Well, thanks for the sympathetic cringes. Then what?”

“I already told you. Don’t you remember?”

Conor shook his head and felt the pain surge as if his brain were bouncing around inside his skull.

“Like I said, Butcher jumped in, threw Ike’s name around a bit, and eventually, the MPs backed down. He told them to get Stevens to the field hospital and told me to take care of you, but not to go far. That he needed to see you when you got put back together. He wanted me to get this to you.” Waddon handed over a note.

Conor unfolded the paper. It was short and sweet. He folded the note and put it in his pants pocket, then settled back to let the whitecaps in his stomach calm down.

“Well, you going to let me in on it or not?”

“He wants to know why Donovan shitcanned me.”


Author Bio:

GLENN DYER is a former commercial television executive whose career spanned over thirty-five years. That career took him to cities such as Salt Lake City, Dallas, Washington, DC, and Denver. He returned to Park City, Utah in retirement in 2013 to write full-time. He is an associate member of the International Thriller Writers, the Author’s Guild and The OSS Society. Glenn attended Villanova University and graduated from Boston University. He and his wife, Chris, have three children, all of whom live too far away. Visit his website at www.glenndyer.net and follow him on Twitter @duffy_dyer and Instagram @glennduffydyer.

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  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
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  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • I am an Amazon affiliate/product images are linked.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!