Dangerous Lies

A late-blooming British tourist visiting Morocco falls for a blond courier spy in Lucia’s scattered desert romance. Marianne Forster’s vacation takes a dangerously erotic turn when Alan Waring rescues her from some Rabat protestors. After worldly 35-year-old Alan makes love with virginal 24-year-old Mari, he’s so distracted that he accidentally takes her flight bag home to England. The bag he leaves behind contains a vital smart card. Terrorists wanting the smart card kidnap Mari and take her to Algeria, where she struggles to escape while Alan searches for her. Lucia (Run Among Thorns ) pens some laughable prose (“She was pretty and she was afraid . Was she still afraid?... Was she still pretty?”) and scants the real world details that should bolster a tale of international intrigue, but her solid romantic plotting mostly manages to carry the book. (June)