The Doll's House
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A female Intelligence agent is dispatched to spy on a group of retired spooks engaging in international terrorism in this post–Cold War thriller
After three decades serving king and country, fifty-one-year-old Harry Oakham is put out to pasture with a miserly pension. But the former civil servant has his own ideas for his so-called retirement. He settles into a luxury hotel in the English countryside and rounds up a disgruntled crew of the world's most brilliant ex-spooks, including a German expert in counter-espionage and interrogation, a KGB tactician, a former Mossad terrorist, and a lethal blond killer. Hiring themselves out to the highest bidder, their first job is the assassination of a Saudi prince.
Meanwhile, still smarting from a recent divorce, undercover diplomat-turned-agent Rosa Bennet has been dispatched to the Doll's House to spy on Oakham and make sure the retired agent is adapting to civilian life. The last thing the Intelligence agent expects is to fall in love with her target. And when Oakham's recruits get wind of his affair with Rosa—and her true identity—they will devise a plan to eliminate the traitor in their midst.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her latest romantic thriller, set in present-day England, the prolific Anthony ( The Assassin ; The Relic ) brings together the seemingly opposed objectives and personalities of Rosa Bennett and Harry Oakham. Oakham, a career intelligence officer who is bitter over being forced into retirement, has gathered the world's most cold-blooded ex-spies (all lacking a place in the post-Communist world order) to apply their talents for international terrorism and murder-for-hire. Their base is a quaint country inn, the Doll's House Manor. Rosa, recently divorced, is sent there on her first spying mission to discover what Oakham is up to. When Rosa and Oakham fall in love, none of their plans proceeds as expected. Rosa drops her guard and Oakham, with long-dormant emotions newly awakened, must question his true motives and desires. When his group'bungles its first job, they must race against time to see whose secrets will be discovered first. While fast-paced and entertaining, the novel is flawed by characters who switch allegiances and emotions at an implausibly quick rate, and by plot twists that often lack explanation and yield no suspense.
