New Review: Joanna Bourne’s ROGUE SPY – Brilliant Sexy Spy Adventure!

Another great spy romance from RITA winning Joanna Bourne. This story opens in 1802 as Camille Leyland (“Cami” – also known as Vérité), a French spy who for the last 10 years has pretended to be British and the niece of two eccentric female code breakers (“the Fluffy Aunts”) receives a letter that tells her she’s been discovered. At the same time, Thomas Paxton, an “infamous French spy” (also known as Devoir), who as a lad named “Pax” served the British agents in London before he turned traitor, returns to London to confess.

Neither Cami nor Pax initially recognizes the other, even though they were friends as children in Paris where they were trained to be part of the Caché, a network of French spies during the Revolution. There, Pax led the other children and was close to Cami.

Cami is determined to escape both Pax and the man she calls Mr. Smith who is blackmailing her—he wants a certain code in exchange for an insipid young woman he claims is the real Camille, whose place Cami took 10 years ago, a woman Cami thought the French had killed. Pax knows the man, called “the Merchant,” a fanatical supporter of the Revolution, and Pax plans to kill him.

This is a great spy story and a sensual love story—possibly Bourne’s best yet. There are many threads, many disguises (neither Cami nor Pax is French) and some suspenseful action leading to a brilliant ending. The descriptions are vivid, the dialog splendid and the characters richly drawn.

All the old Meeks Street British Service regulars are back: Doyle, Hawker and Galba (head of Service). The Baldoni family, introduced in this book, is a treasure. A nice touch, which I thoroughly enjoyed, was the inclusion of the Baldoni family’s sayings. One of my favorites was, “Malevolence is sold at a bargain. One pays full price for stupidity.”

You will love this one, I promise.

The series so far—all recommended:

MY LORD AND SPYMASTER (London 1811)
THE SPYMASTER’S LADY (France and England 1802)
THE FORBIDDEN ROSE (France 1794)
THE BLACK HAWK (Paris, beginning in 1794 (seen in flashbacks) and London 1818)
ROGUE SPY (England, 1802)

I recommend reading THE FORBIDDEN ROSE first, as it’s something of a prequel to the others. BLACK HAWK jumps around quite a bit (1818 to 1794 to 1797 to 1818 to 1802 to 1818) and Hawker’s story is told after ROGUE SPY, so you might want to read the series in this order:

THE FORBIDDEN ROSE (France 1794)
THE SPYMASTER’S LADY (France and England 1802)
ROGUE SPY (England, 1802)
MY LORD AND SPYMASTER (London 1811)
THE BLACK HAWK (Paris, beginning in 1794—seen in flashbacks—and London 1818)