Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

“It’s the perfect place to retire… until they find you.”

I started reading The Spy Coast a few days before I joined the author, Tess Gerritsen, her publicist, Alison, and the Yorkshire Reads group for lunch! I had such a wonderful time with so many book friends that I was so desperate to finish this book and dive into book two of this thrilling new series. Readers, this book is something special! I’m so happy to be sharing my review of book one in the Martini Club series!

About the book

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 beginning

Well, Tess Gerritsen’s writing is a bit of a treat, isn’t it?! And what fantastic opening chapters! We’re introduced to our main characters through multiple POVs which perfectly encapsulate the types of people they are, who they are. And each of them intrigued me right from the start. I loved Maggie, a retired spy living in the fictional little seaside town of Purity, Maine. After her past, she wants a quiet life, and she definitely doesn’t want to talk about those former years. She’s also a bit of a badass! As well as Maggie, we meet Jo, a police officer doing her best to keep their town safe, and Diana, a character I was instantly intrigued about after her killer introduction… Tess has a way with words that has you constantly gripped. I was not only desperately craving to learn more about Maggie’s past as a spy and to learn more about all these characters, but I also completely adored the setting, the small town life. How, if there was anything amiss, someone would know about it. And that’s how we come to meet the Martini club, a group of former spies who regularly meet to ‘talk about books‘… or gossip, theorise and protect each other with a martini in hand.

“There’s a body lying in my driveway. The glare of the cruiser lights illuminates the woman’s face, a face I recognize.”

Maggie is close to two other members of the Martini Club, Ben and Declan. Two people she trusts with her life. I loved getting to know them, and it felt so great to hear their conversations and discuss what could potentially be happening when a body ends up on Maggie’s driveway. The body of someone she only recently met. Someone who wanted her help in finding someone from Maggie’s past. Diana. It’s clear danger is on its way for Maggie, that her past is coming back to haunt her. Someone was watching her. Someone was eager for her attention. But who? And why stage such a dramatic crime scene right in front of her house? Maggie goes through a lot of her past with Ben and Declan, things she hasn’t told them before. We’re taken back to the past to some of Maggie’s most significant years, helping us to build an impressive picture of what she experienced, who she was back then, how she met Diana, why everything started to go wrong shortly after. Back to the very start of that failed mission. And we learn about Danny, the love of her life. How this author can effortlessly intertwine a thriller and a romance is beyond me. Absolute perfection. I loved it!

The middle

Tess writes such real and deeply layered characters that I fell in love with over and over again. And with Maggie’s POV in particular, I regularly seemed to lose track of time due to being so immersed in her past. The more information we’re given, the more unputdownable this book felt. We learn about Danny’s connections with a highly dangerous man, Phillip Hardwicke, a man who had killed and tortured, a man who Maggie needed to find out more about undercover, without Danny’s knowledge. I felt all the feelings Maggie felt, how she was involving herself in this mission when it could put her relationship, her marriage to Danny in jeopardy. Of course, we already know the vague outcome, but reading about this past mission completely sucked me in, desperate to see how it actually unravelled. When, back in the present day, Maggie is shot at on her farm, she knows it’s time to leave. It was too dangerous to stay, too dangerous to live out the quiet retirement she’d envisioned. She had to go. She had to find out who wanted her dead. I loved the growing tension, how Maggie was venturing into the unknown. Anything could happen!

“I remember the way he looked at me that morning as he packed his bags for the last time. As he bent over to kiss me goodbye. How different our lives would have turned out, if only we’d run away as we planned, if only I’d refused that last assignment and never gone to Malta. That’s where everything fell apart. In Malta.”

We learn about how Maggie had wanted out. She’d served her time, and a lot of it. She wanted a normal life with her husband. A life where they could just be. A life where she could leave the house without worry, to do normal things couples do, to travel the world without being watched, followed. But before that, she’d agreed to one more mission. I could feel that this final mission would be where everything changed for her. That we’d learn why she’d retired alone. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for the heartache! There was such a brilliant build up to this moment, each chapter as addictive as the last. Back in the present day, the Martini Club members discuss the predicament Maggie is in, with one member, Ingrid, doing what she does best to find exactly who the shooter was. Her work was seriously impressive! I loved how their expertise helped them to work out specific details before the police do. Finding Diana was a priority now. Maggie needed answers. She needed to know what was happening, why she was a target after all these years. I couldn’t stop reading page after page!

The end

There was something so heartwarming about Maggie’s friendship with Ben and Declan. Throughout the entirety of the book, we see just how they’re there for Maggie, how they protect her, just like they did when they were in their prime years. No matter the time or the place. We all need friends like those two! Maggie just can’t get away from being followed wherever she goes to find answers. After paying an old friend and colleague a visit, there’s a terrifying ordeal, which proves fatal. There’s bloodshed. Brutal murder. It was completely shocking and in some ways, had me feeling so emotional for everything Maggie had put up with in her life, for everything she’d lost and everything she continues to endure. The cliff-hangers were delicious and had me reading faster and faster, and as a young friend of Maggie’s ends up missing, with a cryptic note and a dead animal to boot, I could sense the finale was going to be powerful, shocking and unforgettable. I felt fearful, like the safety of all these characters I’d grown to love was hanging in the balance.

“I step over the body and keep moving. It’s the story of my life. Leave the bodies behind and move on.”

I loved a long awaited reunion between two characters, but it’s not the happy, heartwarming reunion you may expect – quite the opposite. I could not predict the outcome! There were such brilliantly written, tense scenes, the kind that makes you hold your breath, the edge-of-your-seat kind of scenes you just can’t look away from. There’s another shoot-out. More fatalities. A fabulous twist in events which I absolutely loved. And also an uncertain future as Maggie’s life is spared, but only just. I loved how some questions are left unanswered while some are neatly rounded up. And knowing that there are another two books for me to read in this series, had my imagination running wild. I couldn’t wait to see where Maggie and the Martini Club would go in book two, what exactly they would encounter. And if anything else from their past would come back to cause trouble… I had such a great time with this book and absolutely recommend for those who already love a spy thriller, but also those who want to give a new kind of thriller a go. It’s definitely worth your time!

Overall thoughts

The Spy Coast is a beautifully written espionage thriller with heart and I absolutely adored it. I think spy thrillers are a new favourite after reading this! This book has some of the best character development you’ll ever read and I was completely taken aback by it. Characters you will love and want to call your own friends, characters with layers, entangled backstories and memorable quirks. I loved our main character, Maggie; a spy-turned-chicken-farmer just wanting a quiet retirement, but gets pulled back to deal with a dangerous past that wasn’t quite finished with her. It’s so compelling, the author effortlessly combining a thrilling, dangerous story with a beautiful, very real romance. It’s everything I love in a book. Just reading a page of Tess Gerritsen’s writing will make you a lifelong fan, I’m sure of it! Intense, thrilling and action-packed from beginning to end. A must read for fans of crime/thriller!

Huge thanks to Tess Gerritsen, Transworld/Bantam Books and The Book Party for my copy! You can grab your own copy of The Spy Coast right now on Amazon or wherever you buy your books. Make sure you’re following Tess over on Instagram, Bluesky and X/Twitter for more updates.

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