bookchickdi: The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

Friday, July 7, 2023

The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

Published by Graydon House ISBN 9781525826689

Trade paperback, $18.99, 352 pages

As Kelly Rimmer's fascinating novel The Paris Agent opens, four women who are British spies in 1944 were captured by Nazi forces and are now on a train being transferred somewhere unknown.

Flash forward to 1970 Britain where Charlotte and her father Noah are grieving the death of Charlotte's mother, Noah's wife. Charlotte believes that her father was a plane mechanic during WWII, and she is stunned to discover that Noah was actually a top secret SOE spy operative in France during the war.

Noah has been disconsolate lately; he wants to track down the man Remy who helped him when he suffered a serious head injury during the war. He has memory loss from that time and he believes that Remy can help fill in the gaps.

Charlotte finds a professor who is working on a history of the SOE operatives. Perhaps he can find Remy for them, but Noah seems reluctant, even more so when it appears that there was a double agent working for the Nazis who endangered the lives of SOE operatives.

As the story moves back to 1944, we meet two female spies- Chloe and Fleur- as they narrate their stories of how they came to be spies for the British government and the dangerous missions they undertook. Rimmer writes an incredibly tense scene as Chloe and Noah's mission to destroy a Nazi weapons factory is detailed. It's a real nail-biter.

These brave heroes put their lives on the line for the safety of others back home, knowing they could be captured or killed. Those who came home often wanted to put that part of their behind them or were forever haunted by it. Noah was able to put it behind him until he could no longer do so.

I was pulled deep into this story, and although at first it is difficult to keep the characters straight because they use their spy names and real names interchangeably (a chart in the beginning of the book would have been helpful), I could not put this book down.

The characters are so well drawn, we feel deeply for them when they face unspeakable danger and as we draw closer to discovering their fates, I found my heart racing. If you are a fan of WWII novels, like Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, you'll want to read The Paris Agent.

Thanks to TLC Tour for putting me on Kelly Rimmer's tour. The rest of her stops are here: