Crime Book Club – Time to Vote!

On Monday the virtual crime book club met to discuss No Further Questions by Gillian McAllister. Due to the lack of enthusiasm for the book I am not loading the video to YouTube this month. While I enjoy opening up a space to find, read and discuss crime books, I don’t think it fair that a discussion such as the one we had is online for the author to watch.

It was a great meeting as always, so do feel free to pop along any month you fancy. If you have not joined the book club yet (necessary to obtain the zoom login details) then you can sign up HERE.

For July we are reading spy thrillers. The meeting is Monday 22nd July at 8p.m. BST.

Read the book blurbs below and leave your vote in the comments by the end of Saturday 29th June.

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating “historical over-reaching” by the British Secret Service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.

But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects are washed away by the pounding London rain.

Until the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.

Noble Beginnings by L T Ryan

In March of 2002, while the eyes of the world focused on Afghanistan, Jack Noble finds himself on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq. A Marine in name only, Jack is on-loan to the CIA. Normally an integral part of the team, he finds that he is nothing more than a security detail in Iraq.

Jack and his partner Bear have a run-in with four CIA special agents over the treatment of an Iraqi family. Within hours Jack and Bear are detained.

All Jack wanted was to finish his enlistment and move on with his life. All he did was intervene and save a family from unwarranted violence at the hands of four CIA agents. But he soon discovers that he did far more than intervene. He has placed himself dead square in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the U.S. government.

At Risk by Stella Rimington

For MI5 officer Liz Carlyle, the nagging complications of her private life are quickly forgotten at Monday’s counter-terrorism meeting. An invisible may have entered mainland Britain.

An ‘invisible’ is a terrorist who is an ethnic native of the target country, who can cross its borders unchecked and move about unnoticed – the ultimate nightmare. By the time they’re identified, it may be too late.

The intelligence operation that follows will test Liz to the limit. Who or what is the target? Where and who is the invisible? With each passing hour the danger increases.

But as Liz desperately sifts through the incoming intelligence, she finally realises a truth that could prove deadly: her ability to get inside her enemy’s head is the only hope of averting disaster…

Agent of the State by Roger Pearce

A suspected terrorist is frisked for explosives on the Embankment. Operators do this so skilfully he remains completely unaware… In New Scotland Yard a new brand of manager fails to deal with escalating threats – ‘aggressive indecision’ is what Detective Chief Inspector John Kerr calls it… He discovers that cocaine-fuelled sex parties in Knightsbridge are pulling in businessmen, Russian diplomats and senior members of the British government… When Kerr’s investigations are blocked by his bosses in Scotland Yard, he decides to go it alone and begins to expose a cover-up that extends to all levels of the British Establishment.

Box 88 by Charles Cumming

An organisation that doesn’t exist.

A spy that can’t be caught.

1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall is imminent and the Cold War will soon be over. But for BOX 88, a top secret spying agency known only to an inner circle of MI6 and CIA operatives, the espionage game is heating up.

Lachlan Kite, recruited straight from an elite boarding school, is sent to France – the frontline of a new secret war. Kite is tasked with gathering intelligence on a mysterious Iranian businessman implicated in the tragic Lockerbie bombing. But what he uncovers is even more deadly…

2020: MI5 hear rumours of BOX 88’s existence and go after Kite – only for Iranian intelligence to get to him first. Taken captive and subjected to torture, Kite is presented with a simple choice: reveal the truth about what happened in France thirty years earlier – or watch his family die.

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritson

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.