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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber

Image
 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles. I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five). The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult. Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detecti
Read more

THE YOUNGER GODS - Michael R. Underwood

Image
 Jacob Greene is a child of cultists - extremists with a deep connection to powerful gods.  To stay in good favor and receive great powers from these gods Jacob's family (both biological family and cult group family) must occasion a sacrifice now then. Jacob doesn't seem to question this (it's how he's been raised, after all) until the time he brings his best friend home to be brutally sacrificed. Jacob believes that his friend is a willing participant, honored to be chosen, informed of what was about to take place by Jacob's father.   Of course nothing could be further from the truth and the friend does NOT go willingly. This shatters Jacob's belief and has him question his faith and he leaves his family and cult in order to think things through. But it's not easy to escape powerful gods, and despite being in the city of New York, all signs point to the fact that the gods know where he is and that something big is about to go down. Although the description
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - wherein he acq
Read more