I guess this is going to be part reading journal, part book review. And I ought to warn you, there’ll be spoilers.
I just finished reading City of Spies by Nina Berry and I both loved and hated it. It’s the sequel to The Notorious Pagan Jones which I adored. Both books are spy novels set in the early 1960s and star teenager Pagan Jones.
In this book, Devin Black asks newly emancipated Pagan if she will work for M16 and the CIA again. They – no he – needs her to verify the identity of Dr. Von Albrecht. They believe him to be a Nazi war criminal who once visited Pagan’s mother when Pagan was much younger. Pagan agrees, but to work for Devin, that means she must accept a movie script and work in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This would normally be fine, except the script is terrible, her co-star is a sexist pig, and her director is an old-fashioned hotshot who is also sexist.
Pagan and her friend Mercedes go to Buenos Aires and discover that the city is full of spies (hence the title) and that the local teens are all segregated into rivaling gangs. There’s the CIA, M16, the Stasi, and the Moussad. There’s a gang of German teens, Jewish teens, and indios (or native Argentinians). Pagan must uncover the true identity of Dr. Von Albrecht while maintaining her cover and keeping Mercedes from harm.
As usual, for Pagan, trouble finds her and although she manages to identify Von Albrecht as the man who visited her mother all those years ago, she also breaks the heart of his daughter, Emma, and endangers her dear friend Mercedes.
There’s a lot plot twists and turns – Pagan discovers she is being followed by Alaric Vogel, a character from the first book who is a new member of the East German Stasi. Pagan attempts to entice Devin Black, which was apparently unnecessary because he loved her all along. Once Von Albrecht is apprehended, Pagan learns that he will not be punished, but will instead be enlisted to work with the CIA building nuclear weapons, her conscience gets the better of her and she turns him over to the Moussad. Devin finds out that she has down this and he considers it a betrayal, not just of their country, but of him. He leaves her… which is why I hated the book. It was all going well until the last 10 pages!!
I have never understood why authors have to pull the rug out from under their characters at the last chapter. I’m sure Pagan and Devin will both be fine (especially since they are fictional), but it broke my heart to see them part ways so unceremoniously. I totally understand that Devin was angry and that Pagan had broken his trust… but things like that can be overcome. Love is enough to get couples through those kinds of betrayals. But apparently Devin didn’t think so and Pagan didn’t try to dissuade him from leaving her.
So it ends, with all the plot twists knotted up neatly and the two main characters unhappily apart. Overall, it was a good duology, the story was intriguing and held my interest (but I’m a glutton for spy novels and anything remotely related to the Holocaust). I would just have changed the ending.
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