gervase_fen | Disordered Daggers : Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman (2018) (Reply)

This is an intriguing dual timeline thriller that switches between Helen Abell’s experiences as a young CIA operative in Berlin in 1979 and her daughter’s search for justice in 2014 following a horrific family tragedy. Helen is tasked with maintaining safe houses, used by the Company for dead drops and agent briefings, and she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when she listens to a tape recording full of cryptic allusions – and then hears an assault take place on the floor beneath her.

Thirty five years later Helen’s daughter Anna is drawn into her mother’s past, hiring a private investigator who has an agenda of his own. Dan Fesperman has a tricky balancing act to pull off, and I don’t think he quite manages it – the slow burn mystery being uncovered in 2014 isn’t as fascinating as Helen’s struggle in 1979 to do right against the orders of superiors, leading her to flee across Europe. The threat is more tangible and compelling in the past than it is in the near present. That said, I did enjoy the chapters where in 2014 Anna is able to visit the National Archive and look up declassified material to get more clues to her mother’s past – material which Dan Fesperman takes pains to point out really exists.

Good stuff, but not outstanding, although I can imagine an excellent TV mini-series being made from it.