Helen Abell heard something she wasn’t supposed to hear at the beginning of Dan Fesperman’s Safe Houses. In fact, she hears two things she wasn’t supposed to hear. Also, she was taping the people speaking in one of the Berlin safe houses she monitors for the CIA. Even worse: some of the people who were saying things they shouldn’t know she has incriminating tapes. This is the set up for a thrilling mystery that spans almost four decades and two continents.
Helen’s half of Safe Houses follows her as she pisses off the wrong people trying to right a wrong and root out some possible treasons in 1979. Thirty-five years later, Henry Mattick helps Helen’s daughter, Anne, solve the mystery of Helen’s 2014 murder. (This isn’t a spoiler. The murders happen very early in the book.) Henry also works for the government and has special skills, though he’s not as official as Helen was. He’s already in the small Virginia town where Helen lived for decades, keeping track of her visitors, when she and her husband are suddenly and brutally murdered. Anne does not believe the official narrative, that her developmentally disabled brother murdered their parents with a rifle. Someone gives her Henry’s name and she hires him to basically double-down on the job he was already doing.
Once all of this is set up, we’re off to the races with Helen, Henry, and Anne. I loved all the twists on the standard spy and mystery plots. Helen isn’t fighting the Russians or the East Germans; she’s up against the good old boy network of American intelligence. Henry isn’t sure which agency he actually reports to, but it’s clear there are factions and rot. Anne is not as strong a character, but that may be because she’s not a point-of-view character. (There is also a shoe-horned-in romance plot that was unnecessary and kind of irritated me.) I had a great time keeping track of all the double-crosses and sinister henchmen.
Aside from the romance subplot, I liked Safe Houses. It’s got gripping action scenes and original conflicts. Fesperman did a great job creating two settings in which the characters feel like they have no where to turn. Because Helen, Henry, and Anne are pretty much completely on their own, we have to wait and hope that they will find a way to survive with only the slimmest chance of rescue. I’d recommend this for thriller readers who’d like something other than the usual spy v. spy or spy v. terrorist fare.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, fore review consideration. It will be released 3 July 2018.
Romance subplots can be hit or miss, eh? Good review!
They work a lot better when they’re foreshadowed and don’t just happen in the middle of the book when the two leads look at each other and start smooching. o.O