First published 2015
Henry Pelham travels from Vienna to California's Carmel-by-the-Sea to meet Celia Harrison over dinner. Six years earlier, they were CIA case officers and lovers stationed in Vienna when terrorists seized over a hundred hostages. During that crisis, their agency gathered intelligence from multiple sources, including an agent working inside the situation. The rescue operation failed catastrophically. That same night, Celia quit the CIA, eventually marrying and starting a family in her quiet coastal town. Henry remained with the agency and continues working from Vienna. Now, as they sit across from each other, both carry the same burning question that emerged from the botched rescue. Was their inside agent betrayed, and if so, by whom? Each suspects the other might hold answers about how the operation went wrong. Their reunion becomes a careful dance of memory and suspicion, where past intimacy collides with present doubt. Neither can escape the weight of what happened six years ago or ignore the possibility that their dinner companion played a role in the tragedy.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, thriller, action, espionage
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Vienna
Period: Cold War, World War II
294 pages · Hardcover · Minotaur Books
Content warnings: death, violence