#BlogTour: The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen @tessgerritsen @TransworldBooks @RandomTTours #TheSpyCoast #TessGerritsen #RandomThingsTours #TheMartiniClub

Book Synopsis:

Maggie Bird is many things. A chicken farmer. A good neighbour. A seemingly average retiree living in the seaside town of Purity. She’s also a darned good rifle shot. And she never talks about her past.

But when an unidentified body is left on Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a calling card from old times. It’s been fifteen years since the failed mission that ended her career as a spy, and cost her far more than her job.

Step forward the ‘Martini Club’ – Maggie’s silver-haired book group (to anyone who asks), and a cohort of former spies behind closed doors. With the help of her old friends – and always one step ahead of the persistent local cop – Maggie might still be able to save the life she’s built.

The Spy Coast is the first novel in the Martini Club series.

My Review:

The Spy Coast is a fast paced, gripping read that I read over the course of a weekend. 

The story is told from the point of view of three people two former spies Diana and Maggie old team mates from their time in the field as well as Jo the local acting chief of Police. I absolutely loved Maggie and her wonderful group of old spy friends. They were such a great close knit group of friends, who have all had the same life experiences and it was great the get to know them all throughout the book. Maggie was one of my favourite characters and I thought it was great to see how she was still such a strong, capable lady despite many years out of the job. I wasn’t too sure about Jo as I felt she was a bit prickly at times. I did get where she was coming from as it must have been frustrating to be sidelined like that but I felt she was a real jobsworth at times and could have worked with Maggie rather than against her. However that might have made the story seem less realistic.

I thought the book had a great pace to it and I was quickly drawn into the story, unable to put the book down as it was so gripping. The book has two timelines to it one following Maggie and her friends in the present day with flashback to Maggie’s past work as a spy. I loved watching both timelines unfold and it was fascinating to learn more about Maggie’s life. There were lots of twists that kept me guessing and lots of action that ensured I couldn’t put the book down. I ended up reading all through the weekend, ignoring the housework and letting the kids spend too much time on their tablets as I was desperate to read a little bit more of the story. 

The ending was amazing and I loved watching all the action unfold in what I thought was a very realistic manner. This is the first book in a promising new series and I can’t wait to read the next book. It is being compared to the Thursday Murder Club series and I definitely think that the fans of that series will enjoy this book too. 

Huge thanks to Anne from Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Bantam for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

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 and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 32 suspense novels that she’s written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Tess’s 1996 medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list and her novels have hit bestseller lists around the world ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, Listen to Me, and her upcoming spy thriller, The Spy Coast, which has just been optioned by Amazon Studios for a television series. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world.

Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles,” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

She lives in Maine.