Tess Gerritsen - The Spy Coast

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.

Comment: I've agreed with a friend to buddy read this book. We are both fans of the author's Rizzolli & Isles series and I've given two or three books in that series five stars. I had high expectations for a new series, especially since it's been a while since I last read a book by the author.

In this first book in a new series, we meet Maggie Bird, a former CIA agent who is now retired and is living in Maine in a rural area. In the same small town there are other ex-CIA agents enjoying their retirement but everything changes when a young woman shows up and claims an old case was reopened, but Maggie tells her she wants nothing to do with it. Of course, it cannot be this simple and the young woman is left, dead, on Maggie's doorstep. She has no choice but to talk to the local police officer, Jo Thibodeau, who becomes suspicious.... but what happened, why is someone apparently looking for Maggie now? The only thing she knows is that it has to do with her last case with the agency, the one which went terribly wrong...

Assumptions might ruin a lot of exceptions, isn't it? Reading the blurb made me think this would mostly be a story about a murder investigation and how Maggie and her other 60-something friends would deal with young Jo digging up things thy might not want. Plus, having read other books by the author, so clearly focused on medicine content somehow involved with crime investigation, did make me think this story would be about something it was not.

This is a book about spies, for a huge part of the story is about giving context on why Maggie is now facing this new challenge and to do that we have plenty of chapters, from Maggie's POV, where we follow her on her last adventures/cases and why is she being targeted now. This wasn't that bad, in fact, and the spying sections provided interesting thoughts and scenes. The problem? It distracted me immensely from what I thought would be the main theme and, to be honest, I don't really like spying stories that much.

Thus, for me, it was a little annoying to have so many pages about past events, situations that could not be changed and which  - in my opinion - removed precious pages about investigating the current murder. I know, I know... the whole point was to showcase Maggie as a spy and how she worked and what led to the current situation, but this could have been told in a conversation or even though Maggie's thoughts! Of course I realize that having us read about the last mission and what happened, while the mystery killer's identity is kept a secret is also part of the plan, but, again, to me this was not very important.

I was more interested in reading about Maggie's life now, as an older person, while she still retained some skills, just like her friends also do. It was also intriguing to me how the need to keep a low profile would clash with young officer Jo's need to to her job and if the the teamwork implied in the blurb would really be a key element in this plot. Well, again in my opinion, not really, because Jo is kept in the dark for the most part. I can only hope things will change for the next installment, which is going to feature the same characters.

In terms of writing of course it is the same recognizable style by an author whose work I have appreciated for years now. I was interested in reading even when things were at parts I wanted to skip, and I had expectations about what else might happen in the plot. The author is skilled, period. However, it is also true that this specific mix of elements felt a little too cluttered and I'd have preferred a different choice for the narrative presentation. I also felt that most characters did not have enough depth to their characterization, but this might be on purpose since more books are coming.

When the killer is revealed it was a little disappointing to me.. it felt the choice was more to shock than to offer us a valid character evolution. The whole thing felt like bad casting. The resolution of the story also felt like an old spy movie... I guess this must be deliberate by the author but it didn't win me over. For another amazing - and more positive - perspective, here's Wendy, the Superlibrarian's post on this book too. 

All things considered, this wasn't bad, but I had other expectations. I also would have loved for Jo to the the protagonist instead... oh well. I hope the second book is more successful to me.

Grade: 6/10