Review: Secrets and Spies

Let’s start off the month with a review of Secrets and Spies, the newest installation in Trish MacEnulty’s Delafield&Malloy Historical mystery series:

 

The most entertaining part of the Delafield & Malloy historical mystery series is the sleight-of-hand the author uses to place her sleuths at the center of historical events. Some historical writers use a crowbar; Trish MacEnulty uses a scalpel.

The setting this time is 1915. America has not yet formally entered the war, but it’s hinted that American ships are secretly supplying the British, who are desperate for succor. New York City is full of clandestine agents for both sides, jockeying for position. Society writer Louisa Delafield is contemplating an offer of marriage. Her assistant Ellen Malloy is about to cross the sea to Ireland, where her father is on the edge of death. The ship she’s booked on is called the Lusitania. It’s the fate of that ship which will turn them both into double agents working for both the British and the Germans.

There’s no rah-rah cheering in this book. There are villains and victims on both sides (on all three sides, we’re privy through Ellen to the attempts of the Irish to get out from under the British yoke; they’re not afraid of skullduggery to achieve their aims.). It’s a layered, considered view that we’re presented with, which makes for a rich narrative, allowing MacEnulty to give voice to everyone from Jane Hull to Sir Roger Casement. And these momentous happenings will overturn Louisa and Ellen’s private lives profoundly. Some of the regular characters we’ve come to depend on may not survive; it’s war after all, even if it’s undeclared.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s excitement aplenty, treachery at every turn, and courage in great measure, as we’ve come to expect from Delafield and Malloy. I look forward eagerly to the next installment.