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The Prime Minister's Secret Agent (2014)

by Susan Elia MacNeal(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0804165750 (ISBN13: 9780804165754)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House Audio

series

Maggie Hope Mystery

review 1: Spies are not all cocktails and intrigue. Soldiers are not all righteous defense and warranted aggression. Susan Elia MacNeal’s newest World War II novel is not just another World War II novel. I took my time processing this book. It’s a quick page-turner, yes, but it hit me in the gut, with questions and conjectures about what I thought I had always known. Who wore the white hats? Who wore the black? The very notion that Britain might have been generating biological weapons or that Churchill knew about Pearl Harbor before it happened but didn’t warn the US . . . that the ends might have justified any means, and that the good of the many may have outweighed the good of the few, left me wanting to pick up my history textbooks again, and question everything I kn... moreew about that time period. In The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent, the fourth in the Maggie Hope series, our damaged heroine fights a battle that is more with herself than it ever is with an enemy. Civilians die horrible deaths, not just from bullets and bombs, but from wasting illness and questionable intentions. MacNeal paints a portrait of us, of human nature, and holds it right up in our faces. A portrait of how marginalization of women in the workplace and undervaluing the contribution of even a lowly secretary can have dire consequences. How untreated and misunderstood mental illness can cause someone to turn into a monster. How war bends the mind of those who fight, on either side of a conflict, into something that only barely resembles itself. And, finally, a portrait of just how difficult it is to put aside the dark cloak of depression to do one’s duty, not even to one’s country, but to the future.
review 2: Maggie has returned from France and her narrow escape with death during the early stages of WWII. She has been sent to a training school for spies in Scotland as an instructor and to recover physically and mentally. She keeps the students at a distance calling them by a number instead of by their names and they all fear her. Then a former roommate and good friend, Sarah asks her to come watch her perform at a ballet performance. While at the performance, the star mysteriously dies and Sarah and another performer become seriously ill. Maggie needs to discover what is happening before anyone else is put in danger. At this point in the war, England is still hoping the U.S. Will join in their war efforts with the Nazis. We learn more about the initial events of Pearl Harbour as well. As the book ends, we are left looking forward to the next instalment. less

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