Playing It Safe

December 1, 2022

In this third in librarian Weaver's follow-up series to the "Amory Ames" mysteries, expert safecracker Ellie McDonnell is again asked by Major Ramsey of British Intelligence to help Great Britain during World War II. She's sent under an assumed identity to the port city of Sunderland, where she and Ramsey discover that a dead man is connected to an operation supplying German spies with counterfeit currency. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from March 20, 2023
Weaver’s outstanding third Electra McDonnell adventure (after 2022’s The Key to Deceit) sees McDonnell, a former safecracking thief, take on a murky new assignment from British intelligence: she knows only that she’s expected to assume a new identity and leave behind her family in blitz-era London for the city of Sunderland. Shortly after arriving at her rooming house, McDonnell sees a man fall dead in the street. She quickly learns he’s part of the reason she’s been summoned: McDonnell’s assigning officer, Major Ramsey, informs her the man was part of an ID counterfeiting scheme that makes it possible for German spies to operate in England. Despite their different working approaches, Ellie and Ramsey go undercover as a couple and develop a plan to take down the mastermind behind the scheme. Weaver populates this bright, fast-paced thriller with engagingly flawed characters and breathless action. Readers will delight at the dynamic between the leads and look forward to future adventures. Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary.

April 1, 2023
A British intelligence officer and a safecracker combine their talents in yet another dangerous enterprise during World War II. Electra McDonnell was brought up to be a lady in the London household of her safecracking Uncle Mick, where she learned a thing or two about the criminal side of life. Intelligence officer Maj. Ramsey finds her in a movie theater, seeking respite from the Blitz, when he arrives with her latest assignment. Ellie is provided with false papers and a book on birds and sent to stay at a lodging house in Sunderland to await orders. On the way to her new digs, she barely escapes being crushed by a lorry, a harbinger of things to come. Ellie makes friends with sisters living near her lodging and their circle of friends, including the man who saved her from the lorry but later dies before her eyes. When she finally encounters Maj. Ramsey while searching the dead man's room, he's annoyingly reticent about her mission. So she continues to chat up the group and meet new faces until Ramsey approaches her in the guise of a suitor, a ploy they've used before and one that capitalizes on the obvious attraction between them. Ellie finally learns that a ring of counterfeiters is making both money and fake identity cards for German spies. Ramsey suspects that the printing plates are hidden in the safe of an eccentric, bird-loving printer. Ellie's job is to crack it and roll up the spy ring. Mystery, romance, and adventure aplenty in a rousing wartime setting.

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Starred review from May 1, 2023
Electra McDonnell was completely happy working in the family business of breaking and entering into wealthy homes and cracking open their safes until WWII arrived, and with it, a handsome British intelligence officer, Major Ramsey, who gave Electra the option of serving time or serving England by using her talents to crack open Nazi secrets. Electra's latest adventure, the third in Weaver's standout series, starts with a wonderfully detailed account of daily life during the first month of the Blitz in 1940. Ramsey appears with Electra's latest assignment, giving her only a train ticket to the port city of Sunderland, the address of a boarding house there, and a book titled The Birds of Northern England. Once in Sunderland, Electra witnesses the sudden death of a man in the street, a death that the major believes may be murder. Electra believes his death may be connected to the sensitive war work the other lodgers in Electra's boarding house are engaged in. The mystery expands to include Sunderland's shipyards, the secrets of Nazi spies that may be housed there, and the realization that someone is stalking the investigators. As usual, lots of twists and turns, and heart-stopping descriptions of break-ins, along with the comic romantic tension between Major Ramsey and Electra.

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