The Martini Club, a group of retired ex-spies, is back, this time helping to solve the mystery around a missing girl in their lakeside town. When Zoe, a visiting teenager, disappears and the last person to see her is Maggie’s gruff neighbor, Maggie and her friends set out to help solve the case.
This was a fun mystery. The Martini Club consists of Maggie, Declan, Ben, Irene, and Lloyd, a group of former CIA agents who have retired and reside in the quaint lakeside town of Purity, Maine. The friends have formed a book club and meet regularly to discuss books, have potluck dinners, and solve the occasional mystery. The characters are wonderfully developed and all interesting in their own way.
I liked all the characters in the book, especially Jo, the acting sheriff of Purity, who is equal parts exasperated and grateful at the meddling Martini Club. Jo just wants to do the right thing and keep her town safe. While she finds the Martini Club vexxing at times, she does value their input and insights.
The Martini Club is terrific at sleuthing because they frequently use their age to their advantage, whether it’s chatting up the local realtor to get historical information about the town or sneaking around pretending to be just an old person on a walk. Combined with their espionage background, they tend to pick up on many things that people overlook. At times, they were worried that maybe they had lost their edge in their older age, but I think they found the most clues and I’m not sure Zoe would have been found without their contributions.
The plot of the book was intriguing. There were lots of twists and turns, including a couple of twists I wasn’t expecting. The story starts in one place and veers off in a completely different direction.
I was a little disappointed, though, because I thought the book was going to be more about spy stuff. The first book in the series, The Spy Coast, is about Maggie’s past and her previous jobs that she worked as an agent, and the mystery was a personal case for Maggie. I thought this book would also be about spies, with someone else in the club being in danger, but it was a very routine mystery with the Martini Club helping the police. I enjoyed the characters and the story, but I was hoping for something more suspenseful.
I would love to attend one of the Martini Club’s potluck dinners!
Sounds like a cute story. I can understand why you would want more spy stuff, that would definitely add something different to this type of book.
I feel like the first book was such a different vibe than this one, that’s all. It was still a good read!