Pacy espionage thriller with a plucky female SOE agent in the neutral capital and port of Lisbon.
I usually steer clear of espionage thrillers for the simple reason that I find them hard going and although the character list at the start of this book didn’t bode well I found this debut novel surprisingly easy to follow. Featuring a firecracker protagonist in twenty-eight-year-old widow and SOE agent Elizabeth de Mornay and taking place in the so called city of spies and the neutral capital of Lisbon I found this introduction to the character of plucky Elizabeth tense and highly atmospheric. Providing an insight into the stress of living a lie and trusting nobody it also gives an idea of the personal toll such a role would have taken.
The novel opens in June 1943 when six months after being parachuted into Nazi-Occupied France, wireless operator and SOE agent Elizabeth de Mornay’s cover is blown and she is forced to flee Paris. As a childless and widowed woman with a difficult relationship with her mother, Elizabeth (codename Cécile) opts to continue working for the Resistance and after a few close scrapes with German soldiers she accepts her new commission from her diplomat godfather and finds herself in Lisbon with a mission to infiltrate high society. Famously neutral but with a port on the Atlantic, Lisbon attracted everyone from exiles and operatives to businessmen and refugees during WWII. Elizabeth recreates herself as Solange Verin, a glamorous and wealthy French widow used to high-living and keen to immerse herself amongst the rich European set. But in the city of spies, no one is who they claim to be and Solange isn’t the only one with an ulterior motive for being there..
Befriended by flamboyant neighbour Claudine, her casino loving Nazi-sympathiser husband Christophe allows Solange access to elite soiree’s hosted by German officers and military attachés, one of whom in particular catches her eye. As a member of the German military intelligence service (Abwehr) Major Eduard Graf should be off-limits to Elizabeth but in the course of identifying just who is leaking key information to the Germans their paths cross and sparks fly. Major Eduard Graf knows Solange is not all she appears but feels an inexplicable urge to protect her whilst Elizabeth in turn is aware that she is playing with fire and potentially putting her life on the line. Stumbling upon a smuggling operation that is giving the Germans the upper hand in importing shipments of wolfram alongside the crucial leaks, Elizabeth also teams up with a half-French East End boy to attempt to bring down both rackets and come one step closer to ending the war. An explosive denouement and a open-ended final chapter leaves Elizabeth’s story up in the air and primed for a follow-up.
Some of Elizabeth’s capabilities and proficiency in combat, outsmarting her enemies and recklessness have to be taken with a pinch of salt but for the most part watching her as she holds her nerve, switches disguises and gets too close to her enemies is worth a bit of eye-rolling! Indeed her appetite for men seems to be her only potential downfall! Whilst I would have appreciated learning more about Elizabeth’s background (family relations and divisive marriage) in order to fully understand her commitment to her work I hope and suspect this will be followed up in future outings. Engagingly written with a easily distinguishable cast of colourful secondary characters the story is pacy and whilst it might not be the most complicated of spy thrillers I found it a decent read. At times I did feel a little let down that everything seemed to boil down to sex with Elizabeth and found it impossible to believe that a highly trained and intelligent SOE agent would be so easily distracted from their mission and sidetracked by seduction.
The novel opens in June 1943 when six months after being parachuted into Nazi-Occupied France, wireless operator and SOE agent Elizabeth de Mornay’s cover is blown and she is forced to flee Paris. As a childless and widowed woman with a difficult relationship with her mother, Elizabeth (codename Cécile) opts to continue working for the Resistance and after a few close scrapes with German soldiers she accepts her new commission from her diplomat godfather and finds herself in Lisbon with a mission to infiltrate high society. Famously neutral but with a port on the Atlantic, Lisbon attracted everyone from exiles and operatives to businessmen and refugees during WWII. Elizabeth recreates herself as Solange Verin, a glamorous and wealthy French widow used to high-living and keen to immerse herself amongst the rich European set. But in the city of spies, no one is who they claim to be and Solange isn’t the only one with an ulterior motive for being there..
Befriended by flamboyant neighbour Claudine, her casino loving Nazi-sympathiser husband Christophe allows Solange access to elite soiree’s hosted by German officers and military attachés, one of whom in particular catches her eye. As a member of the German military intelligence service (Abwehr) Major Eduard Graf should be off-limits to Elizabeth but in the course of identifying just who is leaking key information to the Germans their paths cross and sparks fly. Major Eduard Graf knows Solange is not all she appears but feels an inexplicable urge to protect her whilst Elizabeth in turn is aware that she is playing with fire and potentially putting her life on the line. Stumbling upon a smuggling operation that is giving the Germans the upper hand in importing shipments of wolfram alongside the crucial leaks, Elizabeth also teams up with a half-French East End boy to attempt to bring down both rackets and come one step closer to ending the war. An explosive denouement and a open-ended final chapter leaves Elizabeth’s story up in the air and primed for a follow-up.
Some of Elizabeth’s capabilities and proficiency in combat, outsmarting her enemies and recklessness have to be taken with a pinch of salt but for the most part watching her as she holds her nerve, switches disguises and gets too close to her enemies is worth a bit of eye-rolling! Indeed her appetite for men seems to be her only potential downfall! Whilst I would have appreciated learning more about Elizabeth’s background (family relations and divisive marriage) in order to fully understand her commitment to her work I hope and suspect this will be followed up in future outings. Engagingly written with a easily distinguishable cast of colourful secondary characters the story is pacy and whilst it might not be the most complicated of spy thrillers I found it a decent read. At times I did feel a little let down that everything seemed to boil down to sex with Elizabeth and found it impossible to believe that a highly trained and intelligent SOE agent would be so easily distracted from their mission and sidetracked by seduction.