What an action packed thriller full of retired CIA agents back in the game! I pictured Carrie Russell from Homeland about 10 - 15 years older sitting and trying to live a serene life with all of her former cronies up in Maine, but secretly waiting to use her skills again!
This is exactly what happens when someone not only shows up dead at retired Maggie Bird’s acres of a chicken farm, but it’s what raises all sorts of flags for underestimated female Police Chief Jo Thibault. In this small, remote coastal town of Purity, Maine, Maggie gathers to play cards or hold book club and drink martinis with former CIA agents who each still have their ears to the ground and know which trees to shake for answers.
The writing is sharp, quick witted, clever, and warrants the reader to keep up with its naturally fast pace.
I highly enjoyed this book and recommended it to my Facebook Book Clubs #MidnightsBookChallenge, #LiterALLyBOOKiSh, and Bernadette’s Classics. I can’t wait for the second book to come out next spring.
Thank you to NetGalley, Tess Gerritsen, and publisher Thomas and Mercer for this free advanced readers copy.

This book is a definite 5⭐️⭐️❤️⭐️⭐️s for me!

#bookreviewmaureenvandusky

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen is a thrilling read that masterfully combines mystery and suspense. The story follows a former spy who is drawn back into a world of intrigue and danger, uncovering secrets that could change everything. Gerritsen's writing is sharp and engaging, pulling readers into the high-stakes narrative from the very beginning.

The characters are well-developed, and their journeys are filled with tension and emotion. The plot is expertly crafted, with twists that keep you guessing until the end. The pacing is spot-on, making it hard to put the book down.

If you're a fan of espionage thrillers, The Spy Coast is a gripping read that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a must-read for anyone looking for a fast-paced story filled with intrigue and excitement!

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.

I was hooked from the first chapter. The characters, thrills and story kept me engaged and wanting more. I love the introduction into this new series and will definitely be looking for the next…

I think I would read anything that Tess Gerritsen writes (and probably have).

I want to thank NetGalley, Tess Gerritsen and Thomas & Mercer for the e-ARC of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are honest, my own and left voluntarily.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this latest novel by Tess Gerritsen featuring Maggie bird who was a retired spy who settled in a little town called Maine. She is brought into action again when a body is found outside her house. Would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery murder.

I really enjoyed this book. I can’t wait to read what’s next by this author. Thank you to the publisher for allowing me the chance to read.

I’ve been a Tess Gerritsen fan for years so I was super excited to read this. It was a great book, very interesting and I liked the characters and the storyline. Highly recommend this book. I would definitely buy and gift this book.

Everything Tess Gerritsen writes is wonderful. I haven’t read anything by her that I didn’t love and this book was no exception. It kept me interested from page one and held my interest thru the whole book.

This book was a slow build thriller. I am excited to read more in this new series. I really liked the characters in "The Martini Club" and cannot wait to learn more about their characters. This is not the best Gerritsen book I have ever read, but a promising start to a new series. I would recommend to any Gerritsen fans and anyone who loves an interesting, spy book.

The Spy Coast is the first book in the Martini Club series by award-winning, best-selling American author, Tess Gerritsen. When someone is asking about her at the post office in Purity on the Maine coast, Maggie Bird is on immediate alert. She has had Blackberry Farm for two years and is happy raising chickens and warding off foxes. She has nice neighbours and regularly gets together with some other villagers for book club martinis and a meal.

The young woman she finds in her kitchen when she returns home is a CIA operative who brings news of a data breach, and wants to know if Maggie can point them to a former operative who has disappeared. It stirs up unwanted memories of an earlier operation that saw her quitting the CIA and trying to find a place under the radar to exist peacefully. Until now, that place was Purity.

When that same young woman then turns up in Maggie’s driveway with marks of torture and two bullets in her brain, Acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau gets involved. But so do Maggie’s book club friends, who pretend an amateur interest in crime solving, but whose knowledge, contacts and talents belie that pretence.

Jo has to hand the case over to State Police, but gets to see Maggie’s CCTV footage of the drop, and keeps tabs on their progress. She is as puzzled as the local ME when the body is whisked off to Boston mid-autopsy, now under another agency’s control.

But when an attempt is made on Maggie’s life, her really friends spring into action, and Jo is frustrated at how much they know about the attack before she does. Maggie reluctantly reveals the details of Operation Cyrano, something that went down in Malta sixteen years ago, successful for the Agency, less so for her personally.

Once they determine from where the threat is coming, some are hopping on planes while others hold the fort and provide back-up. Before matters are resolved, there are more assassinations, a kidnap, and quite a bit of action.

Gerritsen’s plot takes a few unexpected turns, the dialogue is often blackly funny, and the settings are well-rendered. More of her clever and quirky cast “five old spies with five lifetimes’ worth of experience. Retired does not mean useless. Everyone here has brought their individual tricks of the trade”, of the acting chief of police, and of others in small town Maine will be most welcome. Martini Club #2 is eagerly anticipated.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer.

What a fun read! Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC, which I devoured in under a week. Spy thrillers are not usually my jam, but I loved the unique angle of The Spy Coast, in which Gerritsen unfolded a spy mission gone wrong in Malta slowly throughout the book, giving me plenty of what I love best: characterization and setting.

Recommended read!

This book reminded me of the movie I watched a few years ago called 'RED' except the movie was a lot funnier and the characters in it more sassier and interesting.

The flashback chapters revisiting Maggie's career as a CIA agent, her romance with a doctor and the botched mission which collectively has led her to the point in the present seemed a bit long winded. This book has a high rating on Goodreads so I guess I am in the minority for not liking it that much.

This is also my first time reading Tess Gerritsen and considering she is quite a popular author, I will read some other books by her which are also highly rated and hopefully I might like those better.

I received an e-Arc of the book from the publisher Thomas and Mercer and the author via NetGalley.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I’m usually a fan of this author works, but this one just did not work for me.
I think that this would be more suited for an older audience just because of the geriatric characters
Think that she was trying too hard to be witty

Another great book from Tess Gerritsen centred around former CIA operative Maggie Bird. This story appears to be an excellent start to a brilliant series of books!

Purity, a small seaside village in Maine, is home to a group of retired CIA agents including Maggie Bird, who has been enjoying a quiet life with her chickens following a long career that ended with a mission gone wrong. She, as well as several other former agents, are thrust back into an old operation when a dead body turns up on Maggie’s driveway. Complicating matters is Jo Thibodeau, Purity’s acting police chief, who is unused to homicide investigations and cannot understand why the group won’t answer her questions but seems to know more than she does about the murder. The maturity of the well-developed characters as well as the spy aspects of the tale combine to make The Spy Coast a standout. This is the start of a series, and I am eagerly awaiting book 2.

This was a very enjoyable start to a new series. I liked and cared about Maggie and her friends and neighbors. The story moved along at a good pace and was very intriguing moving back and forth between past and present. I will definitely read the next book in the series.

The audiobook book narrators did a great job.

**Thanks to the author and publisher for the e-ARC I received via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I also listened to the audiobook from Audible.**

I enjoyed The Spy Coast very much and invited Ms. Gerritsen for an interview on my podcast. She came by, we had a great talk, and I used the book as an occasion to go through some of her earlier titles. It was great to pick apart her development as an author, and Spy Coast marks a culmination of some of her sharpest talents: swift pacing, intrigue, and action.

The Spy Coast was a great with a plot that is brilliantly paced. This book is about a former spy Maggie Bird who came to a seaside village in Purity Maine and is eager to put the past behind her after a mission went wrong. The author wrote this book so well with great characters and one that had me turning pages till the end. I highly enjoyed reading this book and would recommend this book to others especially if you love a good spy book. Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this book in exchange of my honest review of The Spy Coast.

I enjoyed this story of retired spies and lots of intrigue. I felt it was a little slow in the first chapters but I had a hard time putting the book down by the middle of the book. I loved Maggie and her friends in the Martini Club. I liked Jo. I enjoyed the action.

What a great book! What's not to like about a group of retired spies coming together when one's past comes to find her? The story alternates between the present and the past as Maggie Bird tries to figure out who or what from her past is disrupting her quiet life. The plot moves along with plenty of twists and turns, and I loved the relationship between the retired spies. I'm glad to know there's at least one other book planned for this series.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #Thomas&Mercer for a free copy of #TheSpyCoast by Tess Gerritsen. All opinions are my own.

I have been a huge fan of Tess Gerritsen for years, since reading The Surgeon, her first Rizzoli and Isles' book back in 2001. When I saw that she was starting a new series about retired spies working with a local police detective, I jumped on it. This was such a great book. It is a spy thriller in the sense that the murders occurring in the present are tied to a case from years ago, a mystery to determine who and why the killings are happening, a story of friendship as well as grief and remorse. Former spy Maggie Bird is living in the small town of Purity, Maine, along with a few others she worked with. They have formed a group of friends trying to live happily in their retirement. When Maggie is visited by a young woman asking for her help to find a former operative, Maggie refuses and the woman turns up dead in her driveway. Maggie is next on the killer's list, so she takes to the offensive to try and find the woman they were originally looking for. This takes us back to Maggie's story of a romance and cases she worked for the CIA. She is sure she knows which case has put her on a killer's radar, but can she figure out who is after her before anymore people, including herself, end up dead.

This was a great story, with lots of twists and suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat. I wanted to know what happened to her husband, if they caught the Russian they had been after years ago, and who had resurfaced to try and kill them all. Her group of friends, calling themselves "The Martini Club” were like a found family. They spent time together and trying to dispel boredom, came out of retirement (unofficially) to help Maggie. Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau, is also on the case and she is a smart cookie. It doesn't take her long to figure out that this group of retirees is more than they seem. She does get frustrated when they find things before she does. I chuckled when she came into their group dinner and asked "Who are you people" in exasperation. Although this is a dual timeline story, it meshed together so well, that both storylines grabbed me equally. If you enjoy a good mystery, thriller and spy story, then I definitely recommend The Spy Coast. I am already looking forward to the next book in this series. I did a read/listen, and loved the audiobook narrated by two of my favourites, Hillary Huber and Brittany Pressley. They brought this story to life with great voices, expression, tone and pacing. If you enjoy this format, I recommend you give the audiobook a try.