A guest blog from author Tess Gerritsen
Tess Gerritsen is an internationally best-selling author known for medical and crime thrillers including the Rizzoli & Isles series and her newest series The Martini Club including The Spy Coast, The Summer Guests and The Shadow Friends, coming August 2026. Hear more from her on April 24 at the 19th Annual Southwest Author Series presented by the Rotary Club of Dr. Phillips.
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36 years ago, when my husband and I moved to Maine, we had no idea we’d landed in a community favored by retired spies. My physician-husband was the first to realize there was something odd about our village, after several of his new patients avoided talking about their employment history, beyond making vague references to “working for the government.” Little by little, our village revealed its secrets. We discovered there were two retired spies living on our short street, that the parents of my son’s best friend were married spies, and that a retired spy owned a local restaurant, another one had a B&B, and one served as the director of our town library. You would think, after being handed such a real-life subject for a novel, that I would have written a spy novel long ago.
But no. First, I needed to know who this story was about. I needed a character to start speaking to me.
It took three decades before one did. One night, just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a voice in my head say: “I’m not the woman I used to be.” It was the voice of Maggie Bird, and she had a story to tell. It was about her past life as a spy and the tragic reason she fled that career, to live in a small Maine town where she regularly meets up with four old friends who are also retired spies. Maggie thinks she’s left her spying days behind her, but her past comes roaring back, threatening her life. The Spy Coast could have been the only book about Maggie and her friends, but as soon as I finished writing it, other voices began clamoring in my head, wanting me to tell their stories. Would I give them a chance to speak as well?
And that’s how a single story becomes a series. You start off thinking you’re writing a one-off, but your characters have other plans. They pipe up: “Hey, what about me?” This was the reason my novel The Surgeon led to my “Rizzoli & Isles” series; the characters demanded more books.
The Spy Coast, it turned out, was just the beginning. This August, the third book in my “Martini Club” series, starring Maggie Bird and her fellow ex-spies, will be released. The Shadow Friends focuses on Ingrid Slocum this time, the cleverest of the five. In any crisis, Ingrid’s usually the first to come up with an escape plan, the first to solve the puzzle. For years she’s been happily married to Lloyd, a retired CIA analyst who’s never seen covert action, and they’ve settled into a life of cozy domesticity. Cocktails at five, dinner at seven, gossip and potlucks with the gang. Retirement couldn’t be better.
Until a man from Ingrid’s past walks back into her life. Years ago, Rodrigo and Ingrid were more than just CIA colleagues in Paris; they were also lovers. Decades have passed since they last saw each other, but Rodrigo is still magnetically attractive. And he still has feelings for Ingrid. Now he wants her to join him abroad on a top-secret mission in which they both have highly personal stakes. Ingrid’s not allowed to discuss this classified job with anyone, not her spy friends, not even her own husband. She’s reluctant to sign on, but shocking events in her own town soon force her to make a choice that could end her marriage — or her life.
I’m sure that most of us, sometime in our lives, have entertained the thought: what might have been? What if you’d made a different choice, married a different person? What if you’d turned down that boring but secure job and gone backpacking around the world instead? In The Shadow Friends, these are the feelings that Ingrid struggles with. Yes, she’s happy with Lloyd. But here’s her ex-lover Rodrigo, alluring as ever, beckoning her back into the spying game. Think of your own life and the choices you’ve made. Where might you be now, had you chosen differently? Given the chance to go back, would you choose differently?
That’s the question The Shadow Friends explores: are we ever too old for temptation?
