Bloomsbury
Published July 7, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Maggie Flynn is bored with her desk job at MI5. It’s 1968 and women tend to be overlooked at the organization, so she jumps at the chance when one of the higher-up asks her to undertake a secret mission to Hungary to exfiltrate a spy. Not just any spy. It’s Fitzroy Carver, who defected to the East and spilled British secrets. But now he wants to go home and dangles the opportunity to uncover a mole at the highest levels of government in order to land a nice retirement in the English countryside. Nervous or not, Maggie is ready for the challenge.
Posing as a prospective English teacher, she learns to find her way around Budapest, giving readers a nice tour along the way. She finds an enthusiastic supporter in a restaurant owner, and gets some ambivalent help from an embassy official who is handsome and charming, a potential romantic interest if she could figure out whether to trust him or not. Using what tradecraft she has at her disposal, she tracks down her spy, who seems awfully chummy with the Hungarian secret police, and even more attracted to the bottle. Getting him out of the Communist country, where the intelligence services have eyes everywhere, is challenging enough, but made even more difficult given he’s a rude, crude, drunk. They won’t be able to leave by train or airplane – too visible. Their only means of transportation appears to be a decrepit VW bus that may or may not get them across the border.
A follow up to 2025’s Mrs. Spy, the story provides an eventful ramble through a beautiful, if dangerous, place during the cold war, every step spiced with danger, sweetened with many slices of dobos torte. While it’s not necessary to read the books in order, the final section of this one, which delves into machinations between MI5 and MI6, is confusing and a bit of a letdown after the foreign adventures, but overall it’s an entertaining bit of espionage that’s considerably lighter than the LeCarre tradition, less madcap and original than Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series, but more in line with the woman-centered romantic suspense of Mary Stewart, a comfortable throw-back to the time period of the story.