books – Page 423 – What Cathy Read Next…

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Traitor by Ava Glass. My thanks to Amanda at Moonflower Books for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Amanda at gingerbookgeek and Linda at Linda’s Book Bag.

About the Book

LONDON. EARLY MORNING. A body is found in a padlocked suitcase. Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it’s murder. And it’s personal.

She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them.

To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs.

But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her.

Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous.

As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her …

Format: ebook (411 pages) Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 14th September 2023 Genre: Thriller

Find The Traitor on Goodreads

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My Review

Ava Glass is a new author to me and I haven’t read The Chase, the book which first introduced Emma Makepeace to the world. I’m pleased to say I didn’t feel at any disadvantage not having read the first book and that The Traitor can easily be read as a standalone, although there are spoilers for key events in The Chase.

The storyline of The Traitor with its Russian oligarchs and their luxurious properties, extravagant lifestyles, superyachts, trophy girlfriends and links to organised crime feels bang up to the minute.

Although the author gives Emma a very believable motivation for embarking on the dangerous missions she undertakes, at first I didn’t find her a very convincing spy. Some of her actions aboard the superyacht seemed rather naive such as assuming that just because she couldn’t see them there weren’t any hidden cameras. That all changes in the latter part of the book when she becomes the kick-ass ‘female James Bond’ we were promised, the master of the lock pick and someone able to turn just about any implement into a deadly weapon.

The pace picks up too as Emma and her colleagues embark on the hunt for the traitor who compromised the mission, taking the reader into real John le Carré territory. I liked the cast of secondary characters, such as Zach the tech wizard, Martha the expert in disguise and most of all, Emma’s boss, Ripley, the spymaster who heeds his own advice that a spy should always have a deadly weapon close at hand.

I also liked the way the author explored the challenges of being a spy: never being able to reveal your occupation, having to lie to friends, family and lovers, living a double life with a name that is not your own. ‘Everything suffers when you can never tell the truth.’

The Traitor is an entertaining, escapist thriller, ideal for reading on the beach or, dare I say it, the deck of a luxury yacht.

In three words: Exciting, pacy, dramatic

Try something similar: Cut Adrift by Jane Jesmond

About the Author

Ava Glass is a former crime reporter and civil servant. Her time working for the government introduced her to the world of spies, and she’s been fascinated by them ever since. She lives in the south of England.

Connect with Ava
Website | Twitter | Instagram

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic Books on My Fall 2023 To-Read List. Here are mine (links from the title will take you to the book description on Goodreads):

A Day of Reckoning by Matthew Harffy – ‘The third thrilling historical adventure in the A Time for Swords series by Matthew Harffy, perfect for fans of Ben Kane, Simon Scarrow and Bernard Cornwell’
The Socialite Spy by Sarah Sigal – ‘London, 1936. Socialite and journalist Lady Pamela More pens the popular ‘Agent of Influence’ column, writing wittily about fashion and high society. For her latest piece, she interviews Wallis Simpson, the newly crowned king’s American mistress. That’s when she’s approached by MI5.’
Byron and Shelley by Glenn Haybittle – ‘Beautiful, moving and humorous, the stories are set all around the globe – spinning from Kansas City, Jerusalem, London, Venice, Prague and Hamburg to Florence, Memphis, Rome, Paris and Provence’
Sanctuary Motel by Alan Orloff – ‘Mess Hopkins, proprietor of the seen-better-days Fairfax Manor Inn, never met a person in need who couldn’t use a helping hand—his helping hand.’
Wolves of Winter (Essex Dogs #2) by Dan Jones – ‘For the Dogs, the war has only just begun.’
The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead – ‘a gripping locked-room mystery for fans of Golden Age crime fiction’
The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri – ‘Once upon a time there was a beautiful village that held a million stories of love and loss and peace and war, and it was swallowed up by a fire that blazed up to the sky.’
Held by Anne Michaels – ‘a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds’
Run to the Western Shore by Tim Pears – ‘Set in Britain in AD 72, a tale of quest and struggle, but also an ode to the land and a love story about the reconciliation of opposites in times of need’
The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou – ‘A compelling historical crime novel set in the Greek diaspora of 1950s London – that’s inspired by a true story’