PASSPORT TO SPY - Nancy Cole Silverman


Kat Lawson had been an investigative reporter for The Phoenix Gazette but recently lost her job and now she's working for Travel International, covering Germany's holiday scene in Munich. Except ... it's all a cover. Kat is actually working for the FBI. She's hoping to get close Hans von Hausmann, a charming museum curator who is suspected to be hiding artwork, stolen from Jewish families during WWII.

It starts out to be a pretty easy and enjoyable trip for Kat - von Hausmann is a charming man and all her travel expenses are paid for by the agency. But when one of her sources turns up dead, Kat realizes the true danger in being a spy. When the German police want to arrest Kat for murder, she finds she needs to avoid the police and the real killers who want to keep their stash of art a secret.

This is the second book in the Kat Lawson Mystery series. I don't know how I missed the first book - I've tried to read everything Nancy Cole Silverman has published but this somehow escaped my attention.

Although Coleman's early work didn't impress me greatly, I've enjoyed seeing her growth as a writer, and this series shows a lot of that. Our central characters are well-rounded. I liked Kat. She had a nice sense of history (a past that is both useful to what she is doing, and with some baggage that may cause problems) as well as a present and future that feel very believable (getting caught up in the moment before recognizing the danger she would be in).

The relationship between Kat and Hans is really nicely handled. It's a very adult relationship (I read a lot of YA and get bored with the same old yearnings and the way they are presented).

WWII German art theft is certainly not a new theme and there are many books and movies about this (The Monuments Men being, perhaps, the most familiar at this time) but I really liked Silverman's approach here - keeping it current (not writing this as a historical mystery), keeping the tension high, and still managing to keep this in the 'cozy' mystery genre.

I did not sense any big holes in the story - 'holes' as in something I missed because I hadn't read the first book in the series - and that is greatly appreciated. But I do wish I knew more about Kat and so I will need to see if I can find the first book, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for the next volume in the series.

Cozy mysteries still aren't high on my list of reading enjoyment, but I did like this a lot.

Looking for a good book? Nancy Cole Silverman approaches a historical event with a modern mystery in Passport to Spy and does so quite delightfully.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

Passport to Spy

author: Nancy Cole Silverman

series: Kat Lawson Mystery #2

publisher: Level Best Books

ISBN: 9781685123277

paperback, 230 pages

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