disclosure: we were sent the book mentioned for the purpose of review

Today I’m taking part in a blog ahead of the forthcoming publication of The Traitor by Ava Glass on 14th September. If you enjoy a good thriller, then this is the novel for you.

The Traitor is a fast paced spy thriller which introduces us to the central character, Emma Makepeace who works as an intelligence officer in MI5.  Her Russian father had been a spy for the British after the fall of the Soviet Union, her mother had fled Russia when she was pregnant with Emma.  Not long after her birth, her father was executed and although she would never know him, she would never forget his treatment.

Emma is now 28 and a rising star within the Intelligence Agency.  She’s been working on a case gathering evidence against a Russian property investor when a body is found inside a padlocked suitcase.  The body is that of Stephen Garrick, a man who had worked for MI6, and the evidence points to him having been killed by a Russian hitman using some sort of nerve agent.

So begins a new mission for Emma as she must go undercover as a crew member on a luxury yacht owned by a Russian oligarch which is soon to depart from St Tropez.  She must befriend the crew, and watch the owner, believed to be involved in the purchase of illegal weapons, his mistress and their guests to discover why Garrick was murdered, and to uncover the identity of a traitor within their own ranks.

I became totally engrossed in The Traitor, the building plot and in Emma as a character.  You end up pointing the finger at various characters who might just be The Traitor but then a twist in the plot sends you in a different direction. Even when I’d finally fixed my idea of who that person was, there were a number of plot changes that made me double guess myself.  I certainly wasn’t disappointed at the end of the novel.

You can read what others think of The Traitor by following the Blog Tour: