Carol writes: Special Operations Executive wireless operator Marie survived being locked in a shed after a blind landing in the French countryside. After a week of secret radio transmissions to London, she is tasked with retrieving a package in the alleys of Montmartre, an action outside her purview. With a package of TNT strapped to her waist, Marie must navigate across Paris without the Germans spotting her. Will she meet her contact at the train station, then get back to her secret flat in a nearby small town?

Carol writes: Beecher White lives a quiet life working at the National Archives in Washington D.C. doing a job he loves—researching and protecting the nation's secrets. When his junior-high crush shows up looking for help finding the father she never knew, memories of his first kiss overwhelm his common sense. Beecher tries to impress Clementine by taking her into the SCIF where the President of the United States reads sensitive documents. There, he accidentally uncovers a 200-year-old secret from George Washington's presidency. As the dominoes begin to fall, Beecher and Clementine find themselves trapped in a conspiracy and running for their lives. The Inner Circle (Culper Ring #1), by Brad Meltzer, is a page-turner.

Carol writes: In Unintended Consequences (Stone Barrington #26) by Stuart Woods, Stone Barrington arrives in Paris late one night and is immediately chauffeured to the American Embassy. When he awakes the next morning, he has no memory of the past four days. Part millionaire businessman, part tough guy, part CIA operative, Stone has no idea why he’s in Paris or how he got there. When he discovers he’s been drugged, he's determined to get to the bottom of it. Soon, comfortably installed in the Plaza Athenée, Stone receives an invitation to a party given by a man he does not remember. So begins his quest to find out what happened—from Paris to Manhattan to Maine then back to New York City where the story climaxes in the Russian immigrant neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Unintended Consequences offers up lots of action, plenty of chases with fancy cars, and sexy spies from both the US and Sweden.

Carol writes: In Jacqueline Winspear’s A Lesson in Secrets, private investigator Maisie Dobbs goes undercover as a professor in a private college at the University of Cambridge, England. Maisie’s assignment is to report to Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service any activity that would not be beneficial to Her Majesty’s government. It’s the late 1930s and pro-Hitler organizations are growing and making themselves known throughout the UK. When the founder and president of the college is murdered, Maisie’s assignment becomes increasingly more complicated.

Carol writes: The Collectors, book #2 in The Camel Club series, by David Baldacci, offers readers parallel storylines—a three-part con resulting in the theft of millions of dollars and a puzzling death at the Library of Congress—that converge in a murder investigation conducted by the Camel Club, an unofficial watchdog group whose aim is to keep the U.S. government accountable to the American people.

Carol writes: CIA operative Colette Cahill works undercover at the American Embassy in Budapest, where she runs one of the most valuable assets the U.S. has acquired.

Carol writes: Dorothy L. Sayers’s atmospheric Gaudy Night takes place among the famed spires of Oxford University. A classic Golden Age mystery, rich in intriguing characters, filled with twists and turns.

Carol writes: The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave, follows Hannah as she searches for her husband, Owen, who mysteriously disappears one morning. With her stepdaughter, Bailey, who resents Hannah and wants nothing to do with her, they discover that Owen has lied about everything.

Carol writes: A Study in Scarlet is the book where it all begins. When Scotland Yard Detective Gregson asks Holmes to meet him at a baffling crime scene, Holmes seizes the opportunity to show off his abilities to his new roommate and insists the doctor accompany him. So begins their wonderful partnership in crime. The game is afoot!

Carol writes: Joseph Kanon takes the reader on a wild ride, crisscrossing Istanbul, Turkey from the European side to the Asian side in the thrilling spy novel Istanbul Passage. Expat Leon Bauer works as a part-time courier in the years following World War II. When his final assignment goes horribly wrong, Leon finds himself trying to save a life, while running for his own life.

Carol writes: In The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters, Victorian Egyptologists Amelia Peabody Emerson and her husband Radcliffe travel from London to the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt, to continue the excavation of a tomb after the previous archeologist died under suspicious circumstances. They travel the Nile River sailing past the Temples of Luxor and Karnak, past Queen Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple at Deir el-Bahri, toward the Temple at Abu Simbel. Readers interested in ancient Egypt will enjoy the luscious descriptions of these wonders.

Carol writes: In Lethal White, the fourth Cormorant Strike mystery by Robert Galbraith (pen name of J.K. Rowling), a government minister hires Strike and his partner Robin to investigate blackmail. In search of inside information and to install a listening device in a member’s office, Robin goes undercover in the Houses of Parliament. The case explodes into a murder investigation and has the detectives crisscrossing London. The mystery reaches a climax on a canal boat in the historic and picturesque area of Little Venice.

Carol writes: To keep her safe, Mei-hua’s magistrate father sends her to Hangzhou after he offends the new Ming Dynasty Emperor. En route, Mei-hua is kidnapped, sold, and forced to work as a servant for a wealthy family. Thus begins Hidden, the first of the YA mystery trilogy by P. A. De Voe, set in ancient China. Books 2 and 3 are: Warned and Trapped.

Carol writes: Tough-guy PI Sam Spade prowled the many varied neighborhoods of San Francisco in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. The gritty mystery reflected the times—Prohibition and the rise of organized crime and gangster activity. The foggy city with its view of Alcatraz helped create a menacing atmosphere for the novel.

Carol writes: Nicola Ferris accidentally stumbles on murder and smuggling while on vacation in Greece in the atmospheric and suspenseful The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart. Some of you may have seen the movie of the same name, released in 1964, starring Hayley Mills. I still remember how much I loved it all these years later!