The Traitor Beside Her by Mary Anna Evans - #BookReview #BlogTour

 

The steel beneath Justine Byrne's shins was gunmetal gray, and the metal touched by her welding torch glowed as orange as her hair. Her ears were full of the shrieks and whines of heavy equipment. In every direction, she was surrounded by oceangoing vessels in various stages of completion and by the skilled people building them. She was working at the Washinton Navy Yard, the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy, and the atmoshere was charged with the urgent need to build ever more ships and send them out to a world at war...

Her target was talking to a man working... on the scaffold. No, "talking" wasn't the right word. He was whispering...

***

Justine Byrne can't trust the people working beside her. Arlington Hall, a former women's college in Virginia has been taken over by the United States Army where hundreds of men and women work to decode countless pieces of communication coming from the Axis powers.

Justine works among them, handling the most sensitive secrets of World War II—but she isn't there to decipher German codes—she's there to find a traitor.

Justine keeps her guard up and her ears open, confiding only in her best friend, Georgette, a fluent speaker of Choctaw who is training to work as a code talker. Justine tries to befriend each suspect, believing that the key to finding the spy lies not in cryptography but in understanding how code breakers tick. When young women begin to go missing at Arlington Hall, her deadline for unraveling the web of secrets becomes urgent and one thing remains clear: a single secret in enemy hands could end thousands of lives.

The Traitor Beside Her is an intricately plotted WWII espionage novel weaving together mystery, action, friendship, and a hint of romance perfect for fans of The Rose Code and Code Name Helene.

***

This was one of those books that kept me up reading well past my bedtime. It was full of mystery, intrigue and suspense and definitely had the 'just one more chapter' factor.

Set during WWII in Arlington Hall, an intelligence facility in Virginia, the main character, Justine, and her friend, Georgette, are thrust into a world of secrets and spies. It was an excellent plot with just the right amount of twists and turns along the way.

Justine and Georgette were great characters and I enjoy a book that has strong female leads. The characters are well developed and it was interesting to be introduced to the other people who worked at Arlington Hall and trying to anticipate the ending by guessing which of them was the traitor. 

It was not a predictable plot and I did not guess who the titular traitor was. I very much enjoyed reading Justine's thought process as she attempted to ascertain his or her identity. I appreciated her character's intelligence and intuition.

It was an exciting and tense read and I enjoyed the romance aspect as it added a bit of lightness to the story.

There is a previous book which features Justine's character, The Physicit's Daughter, which I did not realise until after I had finished reading. It had no effect of my enjoyment or understanding of this book. However, the author concluded the book with ample opportunity for a sequel. If Ms. Evans does continue with Justine's story, I very much want to read it.

ISBN: 978 1464215582

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  368 (paperback)

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About the Author:

Mary Anna Evans is an award-winning author, a writing professor, and she holds degrees in physics and engineering, a background that, as it turns out, is ideal for writing her Justine Byrne series, which began with

Mary Anna’s crime fiction has earned recognition that includes two Oklahoma Book Awards, the Will Rogers Medallion Awards Gold Medal, and the Benjamin Franklin Award, and she co-edited the Edgar-nominated Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie. 

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(e-book and all media provided courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.