I'll Tell You No Lies
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From Amanda McCrina, the acclaimed author of Traitor and The Silent Unseen, I'll Tell You No Lies is a riveting YA novel of the Cold War era about a girl in post-World War II America who becomes entangled with an escaped Soviet pilot and must learn to decipher truth from lies.
New York, 1955. Eighteen-year-old Shelby Blaine and her father, an Air Force intelligence officer, have just been wrenched away from their old life in West Germany to New York’s Griffiss Air Force Base, where he has been summoned to lead the interrogation of an escaped Soviet pilot. Still in shock from the car accident that killed her mother barely a month earlier, Shelby struggles with her grief, an emotionally distant father, and having to start over in a new home.
Then a chance meeting with Maksym, the would-be defector, spirals into a deadly entanglement, as the pilot’s cover story is picked apart and he attempts to escape his military and intelligence handlers—with Shelby caught in the middle. The more she learns of Maksym’s secrets, including his detention at Auschwitz during the war, the more she becomes willing to help him. But as the stakes become more dangerous, Shelby begins to question everything she has been told, even by her fugitive friend. Allies turn into enemies, and the truth is muddled by lies. Can she trust a traitor with her life, or will it be the last mistake she ever makes?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An encounter with a Soviet defector thrusts an American teenager into a political investigation in this tensely wrought Cold War historical novel set in 1955. After an automobile accident kills her mother, 18-year-old Shelby Blaine's intelligence officer father, Colonel Blaine, moves the two of them from Germany to Upstate New York's Griffiss Air Force Base, where he has been assigned to debrief a Soviet defector. When, at an official dinner, Shelby meets said defector—21-year-old Ukrainian pilot Maksym Kostyshyn—she immediately falls for his alluring, enigmatic personality. The next day, she discovers that Maksym has disappeared after coming under suspicion as a potential KGB spy. He soon shows up in Shelby's home, insisting that the FBI have made a mistake and begging her not to turn him in. As Shelby learns more about Maksym's past, including the time he spent as a prisoner in Auschwitz, she resolves to help him, despite the considerable risks. Via tight prose, McCrina (The Silent Unseen) effectively sketches a high-stakes spy thriller that features period-relevant intrigue and simmering romance. All characters cue as white. Back matter includes an author's note. Ages 12–up.
