Gizmo's Reviews: Tess Gerritsen

Series: The Martini Club # 1
Format: Kindle, 341 pages
Release Date: November 1, 2023
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Amazon
Genre: Espionage / Thriller

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.

The Spy Coast, by Tess Gerritsen, is the first installment in the authors The Martini Club series. Key Characters: Maggie Bird, and Acting Police Chief, Jo Thibodeau. It has been 16 years since Maggie retired from the CIA and made her home in Purity, Maine which is pretty isolated from the rest of the country. She purchased Blackberry Farm from the previous owner, and is perfectly fine visiting with her friends, her neighbor Luther Yount, and his granddaughter Callie, while running off annoying foxes who target her chickens.

Maggie isn't aware of it yet, but her past, as well as a former colleague named Diana Ward, who she worked with in Operation Cyrano in Malta, is about to rear its ugly head. Diana, who was living a comfortable life in Paris, escaped a bad ending from two men who wanted her dead. Someone, it appears, has leaked her name. Diana made plenty of enemies, and those enemies haven't forgotten what happened 16 years ago while she and Maggie were chasing a Russian spy known as Cyrano.

Back in Purity, Maggie gets a visit from a woman named Bianca Miskova who says Maggie is missing and that there has been a breach of the Agency records. The only file accessed was Operation Cyrano which took place 16 years ago in Malta. But when Bianca turns up dead in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Who is Bianca really? CIA? SVR? Why is she searching for Diana? Who killed her and why? What was Operation Cyrano, and why is the agency revisiting it?

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 (Lloyd and Ingrid Slocum, Ben Diamond, & Declan Rose) 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, Callie is kidnapped and a cryptic message "a life for a life" is left for Maggie. 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.

*Thoughts* This, apparently, is the authors first foray into Espionage thrillers and yes, she did a good job. She mentions that Maine is a place where retired spies go to retire. Not sure if that was such a good idea, knowing the world we live in today. This story alternate's between the present, and 16 years ago culminating in a major loss for Maggie, and an end to a promising career. I honestly have nothing good to say about Diana. Jo is in a curious position now that she knows who the Martini Club really is, and what they are capable of. Also, could it be possible that Maggie has been blinded by what happened 16 years ago to see what is right in front of her in the form of romance? We shall see.

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Series: Rizzoli & Isles (#13)
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Release Date: July 5, 2022
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Suspense

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbors, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe.

Meanwhile, Angela Rizzoli hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in all the years since her daughter became a homicide detective. Maybe the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. Nothing in Angela's neighborhood gets by her—not the gossip about a runaway teenager down the block and definitely not the strange neighbors who have just moved in across the street. Angela’s sure there’s no such thing as coincidence in her sleepy suburb. If only Jane would listen—instead she writes off Angela’s concerns as the result of an overactive imagination. But Angela’s convinced there’s a real wolf in her vicinity, and her cries might now fall on deaf ears.

With so much happening on the Sofia case, Jane and Maura already struggle to see the forest for the trees, but will they lose sight of something sinister happening much closer to home?

Listen to Me is the Thirteenth installment in author Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles and the first in 5 years. Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles are the names behind the series, but in this book, there are two other characters you need to pay attention to. First is Angela Rizzoli, Jane's Mother, who has lived in the same neighborhood for 40 years. Nothing happens in the hood without Angela knowing about. Which is why when the new couple moves in, Angela's sense start to tingle.

Angela is of an age where if you see something, you say something to the authorities. But what if the authorities are your own daughter who thinks you have too much time on your hands? Or, the local police who thinks she's sticking her nose in things that she shouldn't be? Or, her boyfriend who is out in California taking care of his sister? But what if her worries come true? Angela is certainly a busy body, but sometimes you need someone to pay attention to their surroundings and not just presume everyone is safe.

The next character is Amy Antrim. When we first meet Amy, she's walking off a curb and getting hit by a hit and run driver which sends her into a coma. At Sonia’s funeral, Amy becomes aware of a stalker: a man who seems vaguely familiar to Amy, and has her mother recalling a couple of hang-up calls. When she spots him again while shopping, Amy tells police she fears for her life. Rizzoli knows they need to protect this young woman, but it’s only tangentially connected to her murder case, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, Jane and her partner Barry Frost are dealing with the brutal murder of Sofia Suarez who was a ICU nurse at Pilgrim Hospital. With very little clues to go by, except a stolen laptop and phone, Detective Rizzoli must piece together the various forensic evidence to solve the murder mystery. Sofia is a recent widow who seems to have plenty of secrets in her last days. She made phone calls to traceless burner phones, and investigated things outside her realm of responsibility.

What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe. After everything that Sofia has been through over the past two years with COVID etc, the last thing she expected is to dig up something so dangerous, that it would end her life. But could what's happening to Amy have anything to do with Sofia's death? And if so, what would trigger someone to take an innocent woman's life?

Unfortunately, the only time we are able to enjoy Maura Isles, is when she's playing the piano along with some nurses and doctors who worked with Sofia. The author basically makes Maura a tertiary character but we do see another talent that we've never seen before. As I said, Angela is the real hero of this book. She is like a bulldog who won't let things go, especially when she sees families tearing each other apart. When one of her neighbors daughters missing, Angela wants to help. Especially when she sees an unknown van driving around the neighborhood.

It is fair to say that I have read every single book in this series, except for book # 12, I Know A Secret which I received back in 2017 and should read soon. If is safe to say that I didn't much care for the TV series that ended a few years back. And, now they are on repeat on the Lifetime network. Thank you Netgalley and Random House/Ballantine for this arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

One

Amy

I should have worn my boots, she thought as she stepped out of Snell Library and saw the fresh layer of sleet and slush covering the campus. When she’d left for school that morning it had been a balmy forty-nine degrees, one in a string of springlike days that made her believe winter was finally over, and she had come to campus wearing blue jeans and a hoodie and brand-new pink flats made of buttery leather. But while she’d been inside all day working on her laptop, outside, winter had come roaring back. Now it was dark, and with this frigid wind sweeping across the courtyard, the pavement would soon be as slick as an ice rink.

With a sigh, she zipped up her hoodie and hauled her backpack, heavy with books and her laptop, onto her shoulders. There’s no way around it. Here we go. Gingerly she descended the library stairs and landed ankle-deep in slush. Her feet now wet and stinging, she forged ahead down the path between Haydn Hall and Blackman Auditorium. Well, these new shoes were ruined. Stupid, stupid. That’s what she got for not checking the forecast this morning. For forgetting that March in Boston could break a girl’s heart.

She reached Eli Hall and suddenly stopped. Turned. Were those footsteps she’d heard behind her? For a moment she stared at the alley that cut between the two buildings but all she saw was the deserted walkway, glistening beneath the lamplight. Darkness and bad weather had emptied out the campus and she heard no footsteps now, just the rattle of falling sleet and the distant whish of cars traveling down Huntington Avenue.

She hugged her hoodie tighter and kept walking.

The campus quadrangle was slick and gleaming with a crust of ice and her sadly inadequate shoes crunched through the rime into puddles, splashing her jeans with ice water. She could no longer feel her toes.

This was all Prof. Harthoorn’s fault. He was the reason she’d spent all day in the library, the reason she wasn’t at home right now, eating dinner with her parents. But here she was, toes numb with impending frostbite, all because her senior thesis—the thirty-two-page paper she’d been working on for months—was incomplete, he’d said. Inadequate, he’d said, because she hadn’t addressed the pivotal event in Artemisia Gentileschi’s life, the life-changing trauma that imbued her paintings with such violent and visceral power: being raped.

As if women were formless lumps of clay, needing to be pummeled and abused to be shaped into something greater. As if what Artemisia needed to become an artist was a good old-fashioned sexual assault.

She felt more and more angry about Harthoorn’s comments as she walked across the quad, splashing through slush. What did a dried-up old man like him know about women and all the wearying and infuriating annoyances they had to tolerate? All the helpful advice foisted on them by men with their I know better voices.

She reached the crosswalk and stopped at the pedestrian light, which had just turned red. Of course it was red; nothing today had gone her way. Cars rolled past, tires spraying up water. Sleet clattered on her backpack, and she thought about her laptop and whether it was getting wet and she’d lose all the work she’d put in this afternoon. Yes, that would perfectly cap off her day. It’s what she deserved for not checking the forecast. For not bringing an umbrella. For wearing these stupid shoes.

The light was still red. Was it broken? Should she ignore it and just make a dash across the street?

She was so focused on the light that she wasn’t aware of the man standing behind her. Then something about him caught her attention. Perhaps it was the rustle of his nylon jacket, or the odor of alcohol drifting on his breath. All at once she knew someone was there and she turned to look at him.

He was so bundled up against the cold, with a scarf wrapped up to his chin and a wool cap pulled down to his eyebrows, that all she could really see of his face were his eyes. He didn’t avoid her gaze but looked straight back at her with a stare so piercing that she felt violated, as if that stare was vacuuming out her deepest secrets. He made no move toward her but his gaze was enough to make her uneasy.

She glanced across Huntington Avenue, at the businesses across the street. The taco shop was open, its windows brightly lit, and she could see half a dozen customers inside. A safe place, with people to turn to if she needed help. She could duck in there to get warm, and maybe call an Uber to take her home.

The light turned green at last.

She stepped too quickly off the curb and the sole of her leather flat instantly skidded across the ice-slicked road. Arms flywheeling, she fought to stay upright but the backpack threw her off-balance and down she went, her rump splashing down into slush. Soaked and shaken, she staggered back to her feet.

She never saw the headlights hurtling toward her.