Books by Susan Elia MacNeal and Complete Book Reviews
Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $15 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-553-59361-7
A plucky heroine isn’t enough to salvage a plot overly dependent on contrivances, as shown by MacNeal’s debut set in 1940 London, the kickoff to a series. The murder of Diana Snyder, a secretary in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s office, creates...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $15 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-553-59362-4
Early in WWII, after the Battle of Britain, fears of a German invasion of England remain high in MacNeal’s enjoyable sequel to Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. American expat Maggie Hope, formerly the prime minister’s secretary, is training in Scotland to
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $15 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-345-53673-0
Contrivances weaken MacNeal’s third Maggie Hope mystery set during WWII (after 2012’s Princess Elizabeth’s Spy). Maggie, who began the series as secretary to Winston Churchill, has evolved by 1941 into a top agent for Britain’s Special Operations...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $15 ISBN 978-0-345-53674-7
Set in 1941, MacNeal’s fine fourth Maggie Hope mystery finds Maggie teaching at a training camp for spies in Scotland. Traumatized by her experiences in Berlin in 2013’s His Majesty’s Hope, she pushes the recruits hard, desperate for some peace of...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $15 ISBN 978-0-8041-7870-9
MacNeal’s enthralling fifth Maggie Hope mystery (after The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent) takes the American-born British spy to Washington, D.C., in the company of Winston Churchill, posing as his typist, for a meeting with F.D.R. just after the...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $16 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-8041-7872-3
Echoes of classic crime meet international espionage in MacNeal’s accomplished sixth WWII mystery (after 2015’s Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante). In bombed- and blacked-out 1942 London, a young woman’s horrifically butchered body is discovered in Regent’
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-0-399-59380-2
Set in 1942, MacNeal’s engrossing seventh Maggie Hope mystery (after 2016’s The Queen’s Accomplice) takes the American-raised British spy, disguised as a fashionable Irish lady, to Nazi-occupied Paris. There Maggie searches for her German half-sister
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $26 (336p) ISBN 978-0-399-59382-6
Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None provides the setup for MacNeal’s evocative if unconvincing eighth Maggie Hope mystery (after 2017’s The Paris Spy). Toward the end of 1942, British special agent Maggie is ensconced at Killoch Castle, a...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $27 (368p) ISBN 978-0-399-59384-0
Set in war-torn London, bestseller MacNeal’s tantalizing ninth Maggie Hope mystery (after 2018’s The Prisoner in the Castle) finds Maggie helping conscientious objectors diffuse unexploded bombs. In December 1942, Maggie attends the sentencing of...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-15692-6
Set in 1943, MacNeal’s meticulously researched if overstuffed 10th Maggie Hope mystery (after 2020’s The King’s Justice) takes Maggie, an American stationed in England who works for MI5, to Los Angeles, where Gloria Hutton, the fiancée of RAF pilot...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-15695-7
In this riveting standalone from Edgar finalist MacNeal (the Maggie Hope WWII mysteries), mother and daughter Violet (“Vi”) and Veronica Grace move from New York to Santa Monica in 1940 and encounter homegrown Nazis. Veronica is smarting from the...
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Susan Elia MacNeal, Author, Rachell Sumpter, Illustrator Chronicle Books $9.95 (96p) ISBN 978-0-8118-4415-4
This little book wisely and warmly offers ""a philosophy of wedding planning, loosely based on... Zen Buddhism."" The basic rule, says MacNeal, is to stay in the present moment and not obsess about the future, ""giving up the illusion of control.""...
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Susan Elia MacNeal. Bantam, $29 (304p) ISBN 978-0-593-15698-8
In the gripping swan song for the bestselling Maggie Hope series (following The Hollywood Spy), MacNeal weaves fascinating bits of real-life espionage into her intrepid British spy’s final mission. In January 1944, Maggie receives an assignment from
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