cover image Nightshade: A Livy Nash Mystery

Nightshade: A Livy Nash Mystery

M.L. Huie. Crooked Lane, $26.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-64385-456-4

Set in 1947, Huie’s harrowing sequel to 2019’s Spitfire finds Ian Fleming, the director of London’s Kemsley News Service, running foreign correspondents for newspapers all over the world. Some are actual journalists, while some, like Livy Nash, are freelance agents for MI6. When Livy worked as a spy in occupied France during WWII, she had only one real friend, fellow agent Margot Dupont. But Margot was listed as missing and is presumed dead—until the day MI6 receives a wireless signal from an unknown location with the word Nightshade, Margot’s call sign. To find Margot, Livy rekindles her wartime affair with Russian agent Yuri Kostin, now a major in the MGB. For Livy, the end of the war brought no peace, and her new assignment takes its toll on her already fragile psyche. Livy faces brutality, betrayal, double-crosses, and worse as she takes advantage of there being little honor among spies. Huie does a masterly job of wringing all the glamour out of the intelligence game. [em]Agent: Carrie Pestritto, Laura Dail Literary. (Sept.) [/em]