Published 2nd September 2021 by Zaffre.
From the cover of the book:
THREE WOMEN. ONE MISSION. ENEMIES EVERYWHERE.
May 1944. When spy Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, notices a coded transmission from an agent in the field does not bear his usual signature, she suspects his cover has been blown - something that is happening with increasing frequency. With the situation in Occupied France worsening and growing fears that the Resistance has been compromised, Cécile is ordered behind enemy lines.
Having rendezvoused with her fellow agents, Léonie and Dominique, together they have one mission: help the Resistance destabilise German operations to pave the way for the Normandy landings.
But the life of a spy is never straightforward, and the in-fighting within the Resistance makes knowing who to trust ever more difficult. With their lives on the line, all three women will have to make decisions that could cost them everything - for not all their enemies are German.
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It's May 1944, and the top secret plans for D-Day are well underway. Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, is no stranger to life behind enemy lines as an SOE agent, but since her last mission which took her unexpectedly from Paris to Lisbon she has been working in London with the team that decodes messages from agents in Occupied-France. When the suspicion arises that one of her agents has been compromised, Cécile is ordered to return to France to discover if there is a mole in the ranks of the Resistance, something that would be disastrous not only for British agents and all those who view their Nazi overlords with unfriendly eyes, but also the plans to destabilise German operations in the run up to D-Day.
Having adored the first book in this series. Mara Timon's fabulous City of Spies, I was chomping at the bit to catch-up with Elisabeth de Mornay, aka Cécile, in her new espionage thriller Resistance. In the last book, Cécile was mostly based in Lisbon, after she was forced to flee from Paris when her cover was blown. Wartime Lisbon was a glorious revelation, and Cécile's adventures there lead to some intriguing complications in the events in Resistance, with many familiar faces cropping up again (one very significant one in particular), so I highly recommend going back to read City of Spies if you have not done so already - and it's a corker, so why wouldn't you?
Resistance has Cécile returning to more familiar territory to those of us that love a wartime espionage story, as she is back behind enemy lines in Occupied-France and once again taking on the role of radio-operator, or 'pianist' as they are known in the trade. This is a story full of delicious intrigue and danger, where Cécile and her compatriots are never sure who to trust, and the tension is ramped up nicely by the fact that you know there is a mole within the Resistance from the very start. This also brings in a lovely thread of mystery to the proceedings, as Cécile goes about trying to discover who the traitor is among their ranks.
What really makes this story for me is that this is very much a tale about the women involved in wartime espionage, like City of Spies, and Mara Timon writes about them so beautifully. They are courageous, intelligent and highly skilled, but they are real women with feelings and vulnerabilities too - which often gives them a different insight into their jobs than their male counterparts, and it really brings them alive off the page. This also allows Timon to explore a little of the glamour of the situation vis-a-vis the costumes, the practicalities required as part of their cover stories, and the heavy toll a life of secrecy can take on the emotions, which happens so rarely in a spy yarn written by a male author. I love it!
There are many things I would like to rave about in this review, especially in terms of who crops up again in Cécile's life, but fear of spoilers refrains me. However, I can say that Timon has a fabulous take on the behind enemy lines tale in terms of the cover stories she chooses for Cécile and Léonie, which leads you to look on the trope in quite a different way; and the relationships and character development between our triad of femme formidable over the course of the story is profoundly moving. She also brings in a wealth of historical fact, which blends perfectly into the threads of the characters, and gives you an awareness of what is happening in France and beyond at this stage of WWII. I particularly enjoyed the chaos that ensues when D-Day finally gets underway, as I don't think I have ever read anything about what was happening in Occupied-France itself ahead of the Allied invasion.
I was a bit worried that I would find it difficult to love Resistance quite as much as I did City of Spies, but I really should not have been concerned. There is a different tone to this story, which is not surprising given the change in backdrop, but Mara Timon knows how to weave a spy story at its fierce, female, and spellbinding best and I was gripped from the first page to the last. Mara you made my cry this time too. I cannot wait for book three!
Resistance is available to buy now in paperback and ebook formats from your favourite book retailer.
Thank you to Zaffre books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Mara Timon is a native New Yorker and self-proclaimed citizen of the world, who began a love affair with London about 20 years ago. She started writing short-stories as a teenager, and when a programme on the BBC caught her interest, she followed the "what-ifs" until a novel began to appear.Mara lives in London and is working on her next book. She loves reading, writing, running, Pilates, red wine and spending time with friends and family - not necessarily in that order.
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