The Summer Guests: A Thriller

by Tess Gerritsen

Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen—with a startling connection to their own pasts.

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes—and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect—she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781662515149
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	03/18/2025
Series:	The Martini Club , #2
Pages:	363
Sales rank:	22,764
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

International bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, she later earned her MD at the University of California, San Francisco. While on maternity leave as a physician, she began to write fiction, publishing her first novel in 1987. She has since sold over forty million books in forty countries, winning both the Nero and RITA awards.

Gerritsen’s novels have been major bestsellers around the world. Critics praise her books as “pulse-pounding fun” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “scary and brilliant” (Toronto’s Globe and Mail), and “polished, riveting prose” (Chicago Tribune). Publishers Weekly dubbed her the “medical suspense queen.”

Gerritsen’s series featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the TNT television series Rizzoli & Isles.

Now retired from medicine, Gerritsen lives in Maine and writes full time.

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2025

Retired CIA agent Maggie Bird and her ex-spy friends attempt to track down a missing teenage girl in Gerritsen’s lively sequel to The Spy Coast. After 15-year-old Zoe Conover vanishes during a family vacation in the small hamlet of Purity, Maine, Maggie and her martini-sipping cohorts jump on the case, earning the begrudging respect of local police chief Jo Thibodeau. The mystery deepens when authorities dredge up decades-old human remains from a pond next to the property where the Conovers were staying. Unwilling to write off the discovery as a coincidence, Maggie and her team launch a wide-ranging investigation that reveals dark secrets about a mass killing in 1972 and reignites rumors that Purity hosted government drug experiments throughout the ’60s. Meanwhile, sparks start to fly between Maggie and her ruggedly handsome neighbor, Declan Rose. As in the first book, Gerritsen paints Maggie and her crew with a fine brush, and strikes a satisfying tone that’s neither too dour nor too twee. These sexagenarian spies are hitting their stride. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2025-03-22
Summer guests find big trouble in Purity, Maine, in this sequel toThe Spy Coast (2023).

In 1972, a Purity policeman watches a driver mow down and kill three innocent people on Main Street. Then the madman shoots the officer, and soon they are all dead. Investigators never learn why such an ordinary, apparently law-abiding citizen suddenly committed such a ghastly act, and the sad story gradually fades. Jump a half-century to the present day, when the Conovers, a family of longtime summer residents, are arriving back in town. Fifteen-year-old Zoe goes swimming in Maiden Pond with a newfound friend and mysteriously disappears later that day. She is an excellent swimmer and diver, so drowning seems unlikely. Perhaps she has been abducted, perhaps worse. She is not “the sort of girl you’d think would get into trouble." Naturally, Zoe’s parents are frantic. Enter acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau and the Martini Club, a delightful group of five retired government spooks who just love a good puzzle to keep their aging brains in shape. They are merry meddlers who keep trying to help Thibodeau, a “dogged investigator” who resists their aid, or tries to. The Martini Club asks the acting chief to keep them in the loop, and of course she wants them nowhere near the case. But by that time, the five ex-spies are already involved, and one of them, Maggie Bird, surmises that this is most likely a kidnapping case. Maiden Pond is central to the story. There are a mix of houses around it, on one side seasonal rentals for the well to do, and on the other—the marshy, buggy side—permanent homes for the locals, such as the son of the long-ago murderer. Nobody waves at Reuben Tarkin, a social outcast because of his father’s heinous crime. The Conovers say he’d harassed their nanny to the point where she’d suddenly up and quit. Meanwhile, the investigators chase down clue after clue, wondering the who, what, and why of it all. The Conovers doubt Thibodeau’s abilities, believing she’s in over her head. The Martini Club folks continually impress her with their insights. “You people justlove being smarter than me, don’t you?” But secrets and plot twists abound, and their collective intellect may not be enough.

A complex mix of fright and fun.

Kirkus Reviews

A BookBub Best Mystery/Thriller of Spring 2025

“Secrets and plot twists abound…A complex mix of fright and fun.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“As in the first book, Gerritsen paints Maggie and her crew with a fine brush, and strikes a satisfying tone that’s neither too dour nor too twee. These sexagenarian spies are hitting their stride.” —Publishers Weekly

“Fun and fascinating to watch Maggie and friends pivot from drinking martinis at their monthly book club to full-on use of their survival and investigative skills.” —Booklist

“An excellent outing for the Martini Club.” —Deadly Pleasures magazine

“There are consequences galore in The Summer Guests, Tess Gerritsen’s excellent follow-up to The Spy Coast.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Filled with suspense, intrigue and sharp storytelling, this tale follows former spy Maggie Bird, who is living a quiet life in Maine…until enemies from her past resurface.” —Woman’s World Book Club

“Gerritsen has hit pop culture gold with this series that’s anything but cozy. And The Summer Guests is the perfect read for any season, as relentlessly entertaining as it is superbly structured.” —Jon Land, BookTrib

From the Publisher