The Traitor (Alias Emma Book 2) by Ava Glass

 

The Traitor by Ava Glass.

Published 14th September 2023 by Penguin.

From the cover of the book:

LONDON. EARLY MORNING.

A body is found in a padlocked suitcase.

Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it's murder. And it's personal.

She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them.

To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs.

But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her.

Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous.

As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her . . .

*********

Emma Makepeace is an operative for a branch of British Intelligence so secret that it it does not even have a name. Its remit is to track down Soviet spies and 'persuade' them to leave Britain's shores, and Emma is dedicated to ensuring their missions have a successful outcome.

When the body of MI6 specialist Stephen Garrick is found rammed into a suitcase, the security services are baffled, as he was not a front-line agent. It soon becomes clear that he was running and off-the-books investigation into the actions of two Russian oligarchs suspected of trading illegal weapons, and had clearly stumbled on something that got him killed. The only way to discover what Garrick knew is for an agent to go deep undercover aboard the superyacht of one of the oligarchs, and Emma is just the right person for the job. 

Emma has no way of knowing how this mission will play out, especially as she will be alone in a nest of vipers, but the only way to stop these villains will be from the inside. What she does not know is that there is also a viper in the bosom of her own organisation, and the traitor has no compunction about betraying her to the enemy...

The Traitor is the second instalment of Ava Glass' Alias Emma series, and agent Emma Makepeace is back at the centre of another tricky mission, this time to bring bring down an illegal weapons empire. Set against the glamour of the French Riviera, among the jet set lifestyle of the super-rich, Emma has her work cut out obtaining the information needs. She is under suspicion from her Russian targets right from the word go, who are twitchy after recent events in London, and the actions of a mole inside her agency soon get her into dangerous waters that require all of her ingenuity to navigate safely.

This is very much a story on the lighter side of the espionage genre, harking back to a James Bond era packed with nifty spy gadgets, and I did find myself yearning for a harder-edge to the plot at times. However, what it lacks in low-down grit, it certainly makes up for in pace and page-turning action. Emma makes for an engaging protagonist, even if her spy skills are a tad inconsistent, and there is an entertaining cinematic feel to the story which would lend this series nicely to a TV adaptation (one is already in development). 

There are twists and turns to keep you busy, and although the traitor proves a little easier to identify than in the works of the heavyweights of spy fiction, there is plenty of intrigue and all the threads collide in a very satisfying finale - with a catchy little hook into Emma's next adventure. There are some lovely themes running through the story too, and I really enjoyed how Glass examines the relationships between dodgy Russian oligarchs and their families and inner circles, and how they are perceived by those who consider themselves authentic Soviet power houses.

If you like your spy thrillers fast, furious, and set in exotic climes then you will find a lot here to please. It will be interesting to see how this series develops, especially if Glass can inject a little more bite into the stories that follow, as she grows in confidence with the Alias Emma universe.

The Traitor is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Penguin Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Ava Glass is the author of the espionage series Alias Emma. A former civil servant and journalist, she once worked closely with spies, and that experience fuels her writing. Ava is the pseudonym for an international bestselling author who has written more than ten crime novels under another name. Her books have been bestsellers in multiple countries, and have been published in more than twenty languages. Alias Emma is currently being developed for television by The Ink Factory.