Trust her, by Flynn Berry

 

I didn't realize when I began Trust Her that it is a sequel to Northern Spy, which I haven't read yet. I would have preferred to read them in order, but it's not necessary to understand the book. It begins with the narrator, Tessa, being kidnapped. It becomes apparent that she has been tracked down by members of the IRA three years after Tessa and her sister, Marian, changed their identities and moved to the Republic of Ireland from Belfast, where Marian was first a member of the IRA, then later an informer for MI5. The IRA wants Tessa (who also served as an informer, although she was never a member of the IRA) to contact her former MI5 handler in an effort to turn him. Both Tessa and Marian have young children, which makes them vulnerable to blackmail and threats of violence. Tessa follows their instructions and this begins a series of meetings and actions that result in high anxiety for Tessa. When her sister fails to return from a hike, Tessa contacts the police and this begins to unravel everything. As a thriller, this is very well written and suspenseful, without resorting to the over-the-top action and violence of many books in this genre. It's gripping, and leaves the reader guessing about how it will turn out until the very end. This book was eye opening to me; after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, violence in Northern Ireland seemed to fall out of the news here, and I didn't realize that there are still factions of the IRA in existence, fomenting violence in protest against the UK. This book reveals not only the fact of its existence, but also highlights the exhaustion of living with the threat of violence.