Summary: This is the fourth novel in the series about Electra McDonnell. In this latest book, Electra hasn’t seen Major Ramsey for several months since they concluded their last adventure in Playing It Safe. Major Ramsey has been healing from his gunshot wounds, and Electra has been missing the excitement of espionage. She visits Ramsey on the pretense of discussing a rash of recent burglaries and is soon invited on a mission to investigate the link between the burglaries and international espionage based in Lisbon.

Thoughts: This is an incredibly enjoyable series – set in London during the Blitz – with a likeable heroine and a cast of interesting supporting characters. However, I have noticed that compared with the first book in the series, A Peculiar Combination, the subsequent books have gotten shorter (272 pages versus 388 for book one) and less substantial than the first novel. There really didn’t feel like there was much to the plot in this one, so much so that I was startled to find I had reached the end of the novel, which apparently is to be continued in the next one.

The third novel in the series was released in September 2023 and now this fourth one is set to be released in May 2024, with the fifth to come out in 2024 I suspect. I have to wonder if the pressure to keep churning out novels is having a negative impact. That would be unfortunate because the first novel in the series was exceptionally good. This one was just OK.