Books: 'Safe Houses' by Dan Fesperman

In another post, I mentioned that most main characters in espionage stories are either professional spies or unwitting amateurs. That article highlighted the failed professionals of Mick Herron’s Slow Horses / Slough House series, who fall somewhat in between.

In Dan Fesperman’s Safe Houses, Helen Abell falls into this gap, as well, but from a different angle. Helen works on the fringe of the espionage business, managing safe houses for the CIA in 1979 Berlin. She’s very competent at her job, but she’s an administrator, not an agent.

One evening, in the course of performing some quality assurance tasks at a safe house, Helen accidentally overhears a couple different ‘off the books’ meetings. Her desire to learn more about the first incident, and to seek justice in the matter of the second, puts her in harm’s way.

The book jumps between Helen’s story in 1979 Berlin and her daughter’s present-day story, investigating Helen’s recent murder at her Maryland farm.

The Goodreads crowd gives ‘Safe Houses’ a 3.9 rating at this time and that sounds about about right. Fesperman has written two follow-up stories, The Cover Wife and Winter Work, featuring a CIA agent from this first book, Claire Saylor. I’ll probably get around to reading those, too.