I chose this book because of a favourable review by my friend Mike. Thank you, Mike, I loved it. It belongs to the same family as Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age and Mick Herron's The Secret Hours, featuring retired espionage operatives who realize that they are never completely out of the game.
It's next to impossible to outrun your past, as Maggie Bird is finding out. A much younger operative shows up at Maggie's small farm in rural Maine, wanting intel on another member of the last job that Maggie worked. Maggie tells her to go away, that the other woman is none of her concern. And while Maggie is at her regular book club meeting with other former CIA folk, her visitor's body is dumped in Maggie's driveway. Then a sniper tries to pick her off in the chicken run.
I absolutely love the idea of a former spy-turned-chicken-farmer. After such a career, who wouldn't prefer chickens? If you have a few friends, nice neighbours, and a peaceful environment, what else do you need? I enjoyed the author's end note, where she revealed that she and her doctor husband had moved to Maine, where he opened a new practice. While interviewing new patients, he came to realize that there were abnormally high numbers of retired CIA agents in the area. How could Ms. Gerritsen resist such a tempting scenario for a novel?
It's refreshing to see older characters featured in a thriller and I enjoyed this novel enormously. I'm pleased that my library has the second book available, because I need to know what happens next.
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