Tag: thrillers

In Stockholm for a G20 summit, the interpreter Weaver is summoned by the White House Chief of Staff to an off-therecord meeting with a Russian general.

Expecting routine diplomacy, what Weaver gets instead is a chilling glimpse into a secret arrangement between Washington and the Kremlin. Warned never to divulge what has been said, Weaver discovers he has accidentally recorded the meeting – the only evidence that it took place. Now under threat, he escapes to the safety of a friend’s house in the English countryside, and then on to London.

Yet even there he senses danger. Unsure where to turn, Weaver finds unexpected help from the enigmatic Lily Churchill, whose own loyalties are a mystery. As the two begin to grasp the significance of what Weaver has heard, he and Lily are forced to go underground to hide from their unknown pursuers, who seem determined to silence Weaver for good.

The Interpreter’s Secret is a sophisticated literary thriller about corruption, conspiracy, and the lethal confusions of language.

The inspiration for The Interpreter’s Secret was a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in 2017. The only other person in the room was a lone interpreter. At the end of the meeting, according to The Washington Post, Trump confiscated the translator’s notes, ensuring there was no record of the encounter. Andrew Rosenheim was struck by this unusual precaution, and by the unsung role of high-level interpreters. He began to imagine a story of an interpreter who unexpectedly becomes privy to classified information he is not meant to have.

Andrew Rosenheim was born in Chicago and came to England as a Rhodes Scholar. He has lived outside Oxford ever since, and is the author of a memoir and nine novels, including the Nessheim trilogy (Fear Itself, The Informant, and The Accidental Agent) and Hands On, the first novel to explore AI-generated poetry.

My thoughts: I used to work with someone whose wife was an interpreter and she made so much money at her work he was able to take redundancy and be a house-husband for several years. I don’t know how high level her work was, but I don’t think it was as dangerous as this.

Weaver is supposed to be translating Italian and French at a rather boring G20 summit, but when the usually picked first Mrs Macauley is unable to assist, he’s asked to step in and interpret in a top secret meeting between a White House official and a Russian General.

He’s also been given a secretive recording device at some point, disguised as a pen. It’s only after the meeting, the incredibly tense, paranoid meeting, that he realises he has a record of the discussion. Rather than immediately destroy it, he packs it in his bag and heads off for a week’s leave in the UK.

Chaos ensues as he’s followed, by men who might be Russian, might be from his own government. He’s stumbled onto something dangerous and he doesn’t even understand what he knows.

As he careens around London, he’s assisted in avoiding his potential death by Lily, a former MI6 employee who has some useful contacts and the beginnings of a plan. If they can stay ahead of their pursuers.

Intense, full of twists and turns, this was a gripping and intelligent thriller that felt very up to the minute and realistic.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

It’s a liar’s paradise

Wittering Lodge, Stann Creek, Belize

In the dead of night, lying in her father’s jungle lodge, Laelia watches her partner Aid sleeping – her mind racing with everything that’s brought her to this moment.

The heady Caribbean holiday when they first met.

The rum-fueled passion that, day by day, creeps into something darker.

The secrets she discovered in a hidden nook of the lodge, revealing a devastating past.

Above all, she thinks about the impossible decision she must make before dawn.

Does she stay silent and protect their newfound paradise? Or does she confront the lies which run as deep and dark as the lagoon – surfacing a dangerous truth from which there’s no return…

JO MOREY is a graduate of the Faber Academy and the Curtis Brown Breakthrough Mentoring Scheme. The Night Lagoon is her first novel, a literary suspense, for fans of The White Lotus and Where the Crawdads Sing. It was selected as The Sunday Times ‘Book of the Month’, is one of Good Housekeeping’s ’20 Hottest Books of the Summer’ and has been described by US Publishers Weekly as ‘Lush and immersive with a chillingly effective payoff.’

Like her protagonist, Jo wears hearing aids and suffers constant tinnitus. She lives in West Sussex at the foot of the South Downs with her husband, two boys and two Portuguese Water Dogs. Jo is currently working on her next novel, set on the North Island of New Zealand where she used to live.

My thoughts: Belize isn’t somewhere I know anything about, beyond the fact that it was once occupied by the British.

Laelia’s father is an academic specialising in orchids, of which Belize has many species. She and her sister Chloe are visiting him for his birthday, with their partners and children.

When he has a terrible accident and ends up in hospital, she decides to stay and look after his home, prepare it for his return. But as she and her partner Aid settle in with her children, Ella and Dylan and become part of the community, things start to go awry.

Aid has secrets, secrets Laelia needs to learn in order to stay safe. Her father knew some of them and if he ever wakes up, he’ll be able to tell her. But Aid isn’t behaving like his usual self and his past is beginning to intrude into their present.

Gripping and fascinating, with a great protagonist whose disability makes it harder for her to be sure what is true and what she’s heard.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.