Need To Know
The Sunday Times Bestseller
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4.2 • 63 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
‘Heart-poundingly suspenseful and heart-wrenchingly insightful’ J.P. Delaney, author of The Girl Before
Married for ten years. Four children. She thought she knew her husband better than anyone.
She was wrong.
You get to work. Make a coffee. Turn on your computer.
Your task: break into a Russian criminal's laptop and find proof that he's concealing five deep-cover agents - seemingly normal people living in plain sight.
You’re in. Five faces stare back at you.
One of them is your husband.
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PRAISE FOR KAREN CLEVELAND:
‘This compulsive, clever thriller will have you reading long into the night’ Red
‘An immensely satisfying story with serpentine twists and turns’ Daily Mail
'You won't be able to put it down until the final, stunning page' Shari Lapena, author of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR
'If you read chapter two, you'll miss dinner, stay up far too late, and feel tired at work tomorrow. This is that kind of book. Superb.' Lee Child
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Former CIA analyst Karen Cleveland channels her knowledge of the agency's ins and outs—and her observational powers—into her electrifying debut novel. Vivian Miller spends her days tracking down Russian sleeper agents and her nights decompressing with her husband, Matt, and tending to her four children. When her worlds collide, she's faced with the toughest imaginable choice: protect her family or the country she's sworn to serve? Cleveland’s mix of agency action, domestic drama and jaw-dropping plot twists make this book hard to put down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former CIA analyst Cleveland's assured if thinly plotted debut is an unusual mix of family drama and spy thriller. The narrator, CIA analyst Vivian, is part of a team in the Counterintelligence Center, Russia Division, that's searching for agents running sleeper cells in the U.S. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her four young children and doting husband. Flashbacks chart the couple's courtship, then their lives as hyperbusy young parents, delving deeply into maternal and marital love. When Vivian isn't fretting about her family, she's trying to extricate herself from a colossal treasonous mess that results from a startling discovery that she makes in the course of her research. The deep backstory may attract readers not usually drawn to espionage novels, but thriller fans who like tradecraft and action will have to look elsewhere.
Customer Reviews
Good Movie. Material
This is not my usual genre but the blurb sounded intriguing and I am so glad I decided to read it. It was obvious to the reader that she had been subtly manipulated for years but when her work saw her closing in on a Russian sleeper cell it was scary how quickly the tables were turned on her; events escalated and she got sucked into a downward spiral. The book was extremely well written, I became paranoid, jumpy and uneasily aware of how events like this could truly happen. Highly recommended read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated for my review, and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinion expressed here is my own.
Not for me
This was painful - always something going wrong. I’m sure the author knows what she’s talking about but trying to turn it into a novel for the layman didn’t work for me - I felt it had lots of unexplained holes in it.
Incredible
If you read only one book this year, make it this one! An incredible debut that tells the tale of deceit and the impact on a family. Well worth a read.