Sunday 27 September 2020

#BlogTour - City of Spies by Mara Timon

LISBON, 1943: When her cover is blown, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay flees Paris. Pursued by the Gestapo, she makes her way to neutral Lisbon, where Europe’s elite rub shoulders with diplomats, businessmen, smugglers, and spies. There she receives new orders – and a new identity. 

Posing as wealthy French widow Solange Verin, Elisabeth must infiltrate a German espionage ring targeting Allied ships, before more British servicemen are killed.

The closer Elisabeth comes to discovering the truth, the greater the risk grows. With a German officer watching her every step, it will take all of Elisabeth’s resourcefulness and determination to complete her mission.

But in a city where no one is who they claim to be, who can she trust?



Mara Timon’s debut novel is one of intrigue and espionage in World War II. With little preamble, we are thrust straight into the action as, betrayed to the Gestapo in Paris, our heroine goes on the run. Following a thrilling escape through the French countryside to the coast, Elizabeth arrives in Lisbon, a city whose neutrality means that British and German agents mix with French refugees and locals, where the war is fought in the shadows, kidnappings and assassinations a daily event. Working undercover for her godfather, an English ‘diplomat’, Elizabeth finds herself entering this society, where anyone might be an enemy or an ally, where she will need all her training and guile just to survive. The core of the novel is tense and claustrophobic as Elizabeth , alias mysterious French widow, Solange Verin, tries to find those responsible for betraying Allied ships to the Nazis, only to explode into a breathtaking climax as she confronts the enemy. 

CITY OF SPIES is a “Girls Own’ thriller, an adventure set against the complex and confusing theatre that is wartime Portugal. I was unfamiliar with events in Lisbon during the war but Mara Timon vividly brings the city to life. The espionage is much more towards the Fleming end of the spectrum than the Le Carre, and none the worse for that, but this is a fresh take on the genre, glamorous, romantic and exciting. 








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