Betrayal at Blackthorn Park

A British weapons engineer is murdered during the early days of WWII in Kelly's jaunty second adventure for budding spy Evelyne Redfern (after A Traitor in Whitehall). In 1940, former factory worker Evelyne has just completed her spy-craft training when she's handed her first official mission: go to Blackthorn Park, a clandestine weapons facility in the Sussex countryside, and investigate an anonymous tip suggesting that vital supplies have gone missing. Just after she arrives, Evelyne hears a gunshot inside the building and rushes into the office of Sir Nigel Balram--a celebrated scientist who leads Blackthorn's development team--to find him dead at his desk with a gun in his hand. While government officials quickly characterize Balram's death as a suicide, Evelyne's not so sure. She reluctantly links up with her handler, David Poole, to dig deeper, only to uncover a thorny conspiracy mere days before Winston Churchill is scheduled to visit Blackthorn Park. Most readers will be able to ferret out the culprit well before Evelyne and David do, but their simmering romantic chemistry and Kelly's talent for brisk pacing win out in the end. Historical mystery fans will make quick work of this one. (Oct.)

In World War II Britain, a newly minted agent for the top-secret Special Investigations Unit finds her routine first assignment anything but. InA Traitor in Whitehall (2023), Evelyne Redfern went from typing to sleuthing when one of her workmates was murdered. Reluctantly teamed up with the attractive David Poole, she solved the crime, protected government secrets, and was recruited as an agent for an unofficial but vital intelligence group. Now, fresh out of training, Evelyne is sent, with David as her handler, to infiltrate Blackthorn Park, a secret government installation developing clandestine weapons, to try to figure out why some materials have gone missing. Prime Minister Winston Churchill is due to arrive there in a few days for a demonstration, and tensions are high. Evelyne arrives in the village of Benstead, where Blackthorn Park is located, pretending to be visiting a relative, and does enough snooping on her first day to convince herself that the facility is far from secure. Slipping into the grounds of Blackthorn Park that night, she finds the dead body of Sir Nigel Balram, the brilliant but unpopular engineer who heads the project. Suspicious of his apparent suicide, Evelyne takes charge until David can arrive. David poses as a police detective investigating the death and seeks to discover whether material is being stolen or sabotaged, since several of the devices made at Blackthorn Park have proved unreliable. Apart from his differences with his team, the short-tempered Sir Nigel had made enemies through his habit of sleeping with other men's wives. Checking alibis and snooping through Sir Nigel's paperwork open up several promising leads. So does another murder staged to look like suicide. Now Evelyne and David must find the reason for the weapon malfunctions and determine whether the murders are connected. A surprising denouement caps a budding romance in a country torn by war. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.