TRUST HER

Three years after the events of Northern Spy (2021), former MI5 informants Tessa and Marian Daly learn that you can never really walk away from the IRA.

In the years since she and sister Marian barely escaped Northern Ireland with their lives, Tessa has settled into the exhausting, beautiful routine of motherhood. Finn, at 4, is capricious and loving and curious, and while she misses him when he’s with his father, Tessa values the mundane stability of their lives. Of course, if she double locks her doors at night, who can blame her? Even with a new identity and a new home in Dublin, Tessa knows the IRA never forgets a betrayal. When her car is rear-ended and she’s confronted by an acquaintance from her childhood, it feels like an inevitable nightmare. Eoin Royce, recently released from prison, wants Tessa to help him turn her former MI5 handler. Soon, Tessa is back to walking the tightrope with new mom Marian’s help as she feeds choice bits of information to Royce and other bits to her MI5 handler, Eamonn. She will learn about deeply buried family secrets as she fights an intense attraction to Eamonn—even as she lies to him to keep herself, and her child, safe. Berry once again provides an engaging character in Tessa, who is fierce, desperate, and clever. In a lot of ways, though, this is Marian’s fight, and Tessa, while willing to do whatever she can to protect her sister, ends up being more reactive than in control. The author continues to interrogate the lasting, and live, impact of centuries of colonialism and violence on contemporary lives. For readers who don’t live with this constant fear, it’s a reminder that old wounds in a country bleed long and deep.

A meditation on generational trauma—along with well-scripted action and suspense.