The queen's accomplice

Susan Elia MacNeal

Book - 2016

"This New York Times bestselling mystery series continues as American-born codebreaker extraordinaire, Maggie Hope, returns to England to continue her intelligence work during World War II. England, 1942. Great Britain and the U.S. have joined forces to fight the Nazis. In London, Maggie Hope takes on the biggest challenge of her career: finding a killer who models himself on Jack the Ripper--and who targets female intelligence agents...like Maggie"--

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Subjects
Genres
Historical fiction
Mystery fiction
Spy stories
Published
New York : Bantam Books [2016]
Language
English
Main Author
Susan Elia MacNeal (author)
Physical Description
353 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
9780804178723
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

As if Germany weren't enough of a challenge to Londoners in 1942, a Jack the Ripper copycat is targeting young women involved in the war effort. American-bred agent Maggie Hope, 27, is chafing under the new leadership of the Special Operations Executive, a colonel who considers women best used to brew tea and is cavalier about a female agent's disquieting coded messages. Then Maggie is tapped to work with MI5 to find the Blackout Beast, who is killing women in the army and SOE in the same manner that the original Ripper killed prostitutes, seemingly because he resents their taking jobs that should belong to men. As she works with DCI James Durgin to track down the Beast, Maggie also uses her established connections with Queen Elizabeth to push for parity for women agents, who are paid less than men and are at greater risk because they aren't covered by the Geneva Convention. Although the ending seems rushed, with the indomitable Maggie serving as bait for the Beast and then taking off to pursue dangling story lines, this is a fine historical mystery given a feminist slant.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Echoes of classic crime meet international espionage in MacNeal's accomplished sixth WWII mystery (after 2015's Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante). In bombed- and blacked-out 1942 London, a young woman's horrifically butchered body is discovered in Regent's Park near graffiti proclaiming that "Jack Is Back." With the discovery of a second, similarly brutalized corpse, a pattern emerges: the murders explicitly mimic Jack the Ripper's, and both women have been tapped for the Special Operations Executive, a top-secret unit that sends women spies behind enemy lines. American expat Maggie Hope, an experienced SOE operative, joins the investigation jointly conducted by Scotland Yard and MI5. The stakes rise when a young woman trained by Maggie disappears, possibly abducted by the killer that the press dubs the Blackout Beast. Though the titular queen-the current monarch's mother-plays only a minor role, MacNeal's engaging characters, vivid scene-setting, moments of romance, and rich historical detail offer plenty to enjoy. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Returning to London from Washington, DC, Maggie Hope is working at Special Operations Division, 64 Baker Street. The Nazis have stopped their nightly bombing, but the city is still burning. When an elderly air raid warden stumbles over a mutilated body in Regent's Park, it marks the beginning of a terrible re-creation of Jack the Ripper's killing spree. This sixth entry in the World War II series follows Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An accomplished young woman fights hate and misogyny in World War II Britain.Maggie Hope was born in Britain but raised in America by her university professor aunt. Since her return to war-torn Britain, shes been a secretary to Winston Churchill, a spy, a decoder, a protector for the royal family, a thwarter of her Nazi-spy mothers plans, and a confidante to Eleanor Roosevelt. Shes currently an assistant at one of the Special Operations Executive offices, where her misogynist boss ignores her warnings about an agent Maggie knows has been compromised and refuses to seek better pay and pensions for the women risking their lives overseas. As Maggie awaits the arrival of her younger half sister, Elise Hess, rescued from her dangerous life in Germany, a modern-day Jack the Ripper is killing young women, at least some of whom are on their way to the SOE for interviews. Maggies recently moved back to her house, which was damaged in a bombing raid, and is sharing with an old friend whose house was blown up. A former roommate, ballerina Sarah Sanderson, has almost completed her SOE training and plans to go to France with Maggies former boyfriend Hugh Thompson, with whom she has fallen in love. Maggie, who also occasionally works for MI-5, is ordered to join forces with the police to catch the new Ripper because of the victims connections with SOE. Though DCI James Durgin is none too pleased to work with MI-5, he quickly learns to appreciate Maggies many skills and her willingness to risk her life in pursuit of the killer. Maggie (Mrs. Roosevelts Confidante, 2015, etc.) is a thoughtful spy whose dangerous escapades never disappoint. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter One Something was wrong. Maggie Hope was sure, but she couldn't yet put her finger on it. What could it be? Frowning, she went over the encoded document yet again. Maggie was working as a girl Friday in a dim reception room at 64 Baker Street, at the Special Operations Executive's offices. It was in an anonymous gray limestone building down the street from Sherlock Holmes's fictional address and Regent's Park, only one of the many unremarkable SOE offices scattered around the Marylebone area of central London. Because of lack of space in Whitehall, Baker Street and its surrounding area had become home for SOE, and several buildings had been fitted with discreet plaques reading inter-­services research bureau. The staff and those in the know called it the Firm, the Org, or the Racket, and its employees were known as the Baker Street Irregulars, in honor of Holmes's young informants. The atmosphere in the shabby third-­floor offices of 64 Baker Street was informal, with almost everyone sipping mugs of hot tea and smoking Gauloises, men and women passing through speaking perfect French. The icy reception room was small and narrow, with only one window and a low ceiling. A fire extinguisher and a notice pointing out the direction of the air-­raid shelter decorated one wall, while a tacked-­up postcard of the Arc de Triomphe covered the cracks of another. Maggie wore an old skirt, a white blouse, and a thick navy-­blue wool cardigan patched at the elbows. She was never without her pearl stud earrings, a graduation gift from her Aunt Edith, and her long coppery hair was up in a bun that had begun the day tidy but was now slipping, tendrils springing free around her face and neck. She sat at a dented metal desk with a Remington typewriter, behind a line of telephones in assorted colors, and an overflowing wooden inbox. Only twenty-­seven, Maggie had already performed any number of missions as an agent for SOE, but had taken a desk job in London while she was waiting for the arrival of her German half sister, Elise Hess, a Resistance worker in Berlin. Her rescue to London, ordered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself, was taking longer than expected--­but Maggie knew all too well these missions never went exactly as planned. And so she waited, and while she did, she made herself useful at the SOE offices. When she wasn't greeting prospective agents arriving for their various interviews, she was checking coded messages transmitted by F-­Section agents. After all, she'd been secretary to the P.M. himself--­as well as saving the life of the Princess Elizabeth, parachuting into Nazi Berlin, teaching at a paramilitary camp, and keeping the First Lady of the United States of America safe from scandal. How hard could managing an office be? And it was only temporary, until her half sister arrived in London and settled in. On this Saturday afternoon, as the light from the grimy window began to fade, Maggie was performing a task known as "code check," going over an agent's transmission from the field, making sure all was in order. Maggie--­a mathematics prodigy who'd graduated summa cum laude from Wellesley College, with a special aptitude for codes and ciphers--­liked to try her hand at transposing the worst of the garbled messages. As she worked, she rubbed absently at an ink stain on her blouse's cuff and then buttoned up her sweater against the office's chill. Maggie knew the Morse coding systems intimately, knew how to "unscramble the indecipherable." What looked to be problems in a given message might occur simply because an agent had transposed two letters, or misspelled a word. Each agent had a characteristic set of mistakes, and Maggie had quickly come to learn each one's unique style of communication. For example, some agents routinely misspelled certain words--­bad habits from childhood. Then there were the trademark sign-­offs; a few liked to end with a simple Goodbye, while others sent Lots of Love, and yet another's was Tallyho! Maggie was worried about this particular message, from agent Erica Calvert, a young geologist who'd made a midnight boat landing on the beach near Normandy a few weeks before. Something was . . . not right. Calvert had studied earth science at St. Hilda's at Oxford and was considered an expert on sand grains. But this particular message from her--­well, Maggie had never seen anything like it. It was what they called "mutilated," which might have been caused by atmospheric conditions. But Erica's writing was also uncharacteristically clipped. Most troubling was that Calvert hadn't included her secret security check, carried by each agent, which gave SOE contacts back in Britain absolute confirmation the wireless operator was transmitting freely. Before leaving for a mission, each agent was assigned both a bluff check and a true check, which he or she had to insert into every message. These took the form of spelling mistakes or secret signals, agreed on with SOE, to show the sender had been captured. All right, stay calm, Maggie thought as fear prickled up her spine. Let's look at this logically. She could see four explanations for the oddities of Erica Calvert's message. One: The message had been transmitted by someone else in Erica's network, but on Calvert's set--­and had left off the security code. Two: Calvert was on the run and operating in difficult circumstances, which changed her fist, and she didn't have time for the security code. Then, three: Calvert had been captured. She was operating under German control and so had deliberately omitted the security code to alert SOE she'd been compromised. And there was four--­the worst-­case scenario: Calvert was dead and the Germans were using her radio and codes with impunity. When Maggie went to the overflowing file cabinet and looked up Calvert's former messages, she found not only that Calvert had sent more than a dozen near-­perfect ones since arriving in France, but also that she'd never forgotten her security check before. Not once. Damn, Maggie swore. What's going on over there, Agent Calvert? Tout va bien? There was the click of heels on the scratched parquet floor, and then a woman's sweet, breathy voice inflected with a Welsh accent. "Excuse me? Miss Hope?" Maggie slipped Calvert's message into a manila folder, then looked up, into the eyes of a petite, curly-­haired brunette named Bronwyn Parry, kitted out in an ATS uniform. A gap between her two front teeth and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose only added to her charm. Bronwyn had been one of Maggie's best students at the SOE paramilitary training camp, near the town of Arisaig on the western coast of Scotland; she'd excelled at jujitsu, Fairbairn-­Sykes knife fighting, and detonating explosives. Maggie had always liked Brynn. "Just Maggie is fine now. How did the interview go?" Bronwyn had finished interviewing with Miss Lynd, one of the final hurdles before being sent to Beaulieu, the "Finishing School" for all SOE agents. "It went well," the young woman replied in her broad Cardiff accent, "but I don't have a place to stay in London." Her usually open face was troubled. "All these posh girls can book a room at Claridge's or stay at Daddy's pied-­à-­terre." She rolled her eyes. "Meanwhile, the rest of us have to scrum for a place. . . ." Maggie nodded. She knew firsthand how SOE was a curious cross section of social class and privilege. Brynn shrugged. "And Miss Lynd insists I come in again tomorrow--­for yet another interview." "I wish I could help you, Brynn," Maggie offered with sincerity. "I'd ask you to stay with me, but my own flat was smashed in a raid--­I'm bunking with friends myself." Brynn opened her handbag and pulled out a Woodbine cigarette and enamel lighter. She stuck the cigarette between her lips, lit it, and inhaled. "What should I do, sleep on a bench in Regent's Park?" She puffed out a series of blue smoke rings. "Well, that option might prove a bit nippy. Alas, SOE doesn't provide temporary lodging--­but here's a place to try." Maggie rummaged through the left-­hand desk drawer, through an old bottle of clear nail polish for stocking runs, two rationed sugar cubes saved in an envelope, and a battered box of paper clips, until she found a business card: THE CASTLE HOTEL FOR WOMEN: Temporary Lodging for Ladies and the address in heavy black ink. She handed it to Brynn. "You can call from here to see if there are any vacancies for tonight. Miss Lynd tells me a number of SOE interviewees have stayed there. Here, use this phone," she said, pushing a green one toward the Welsh girl. As Brynn came around the desk, they both heard a bellow. "Meggie!" a gruff male voice boomed from behind a thick wooden office door. "Meggie!" Maggie sighed, then picked up Calvert's file and rose. She walked the strip of threadbare carpet through the dim passageway, then pushed at the half-­closed office door. "It's Maggie, sir," she reminded him gently. Although the men in the office were referred to by their rank and wore uniforms, the women were called by their first names and expected to dress in civilian clothes. Colonel Harry Gaskell was in his late forties, a short, rotund man with yellow hair and a fleshy, shining face. The beginnings of rosacea pinked his nose and cheeks. Although he'd served in the British Army's Intelligence Corps as a doctor at the outbreak of the war, he'd been evacuated from Dunkirk and stayed in Britain. What concerned Maggie most was he had no firsthand knowledge of, or training in, guerrilla warfare, despite the fact he was in charge of F-­Section. Gaskell blinked pale eyes. "Meeting's at five-­thirty. We'll jolly well need tea, and some of those oatmeal biscuits Miss Cooper made--­hard as rocks, but if you dunk them, they're not so bad." "Colonel--­" Maggie began, handing him Erica Calvert's file. Gaskell accepted it with a brisk movement, then flicked his eyes over the document and Maggie's notes. He handed it back to her. "Jolly good job, young lady." "No," Maggie persisted, "I believe something's wrong, sir." "There's only one explanation for Miss Calvert's mistakes--­carelessness," the Colonel admonished. "The next time the girl's schedule comes up, tell her she's forgotten her security check. And remind her to be more vigilant!" He chortled. "Give that girl a rap on the knuckles!" Maggie braced her shoulders. "Colonel Gaskell, Erica Calvert didn't only forget the security check. Her fist was also out of character--­unusually hesitant, not her style at all. I don't like to be negative, but I believe it's possible she's been captured and her radio's now in the hands of the Germans." Outside the window, she could see cars passing on Baker Street dusted by a light snow shower. The side of one red-­brick building was painted with the advertisement take bovril to resist flu. There was the screech of brakes, a loud crash, and then a torrent of swearing as one car hit another on the slippery pavement. "Fiddlesticks, Meggie! Er, Maggie. When you hear hooves, think horses, not unicorns! You're doing jolly good work here and I know you're concerned about the agents in the field, my dear, but let's not let drama override duty, yes?" As she turned and stalked away, Gaskell called after her: "And don't let the tea steep too long this time!" Maggie could easily make out his grumbled complaint, "Damn Yanks . . ." Gritting her teeth, Maggie put the file back in her desk drawer, then braved the frigid corridor to the dingy kitchenette to put the kettle on. Excerpted from The Queen's Accomplice: A Maggie Hope Mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.