The Spy Who Never Wanted To

Immediately I thought, he's gone to Cuba. There was an underground human rights meeting taking place in Cuba that week and Martinez decided Roque was going there but hadn't told her he was going because he wanted to protect her. Friends suggested he had run off with another woman, but Martinez was convinced he had gone to Cuba to agitate.

The following day, Martinez heard that two planes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue had been shot down by Cuban MiGs. Four pilots were killed. The community was in an uproar and there was still no word from Roque. Three days after he left, Martinez turned on CNN to see her husband in Havana, unmasking himself as an agent of Castro.

He denounced the Brothers as a terrorist group and revealed that his life and marriage in Miami had been a set-up. Martinez says those first minutes seeing him on television were pure Kafka. I said, my husband isn't capable of this, he couldn't be a spy. I was convinced he had been kidnapped and brainwashed. As reality hit, Martinez took leave from her job and numbed herself with a combination of anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

She went into therapy: She was immediately ostracised by members of the exile community. They were convinced that she knew Roque was a spy and had conspired with him. They blasted her on Spanish radio and television, and ignored her in public. At the memorial service for one of the murdered Brothers pilots, Martinez was asked to leave by a grieving parent; she was told she was under suspicion herself and unwelcome.

As the attacks increased, Martinez went on the offensive in the media, insisting she was as conned as everyone else. In the ensuing months, it emerged that Roque was also an informer for the FBI, supplying information on Brothers to the Rescue.

Martinez heard he'd been promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, the agency responsible for internal and external espionage. Martinez, meanwhile, was left with her life in ruins. Roque's betrayal had landed her in dire financial straits: The name had been dreamed up several years ago. Three CIA field operatives had used that name at one time or another. The birth of a legend. Somehow this classified information had been leaked.

To one person anyway. He went by the code name of TSB. Silence came with a price tag. The CIA had no intention of meeting the blackmailers demands. Nora's assignment was to draw the culprit out into the open. From there, easily scooped up. Fortunately, she had a fundamental understanding of the language. It would serve her well. But things had gotten off to a rocky start. The assailant meant deadly business. Keeping a cool head about her with an instinct to survive, Nora fought off the attacker.

So far this had not lived up to it's being the low-risk mission she signed up for. She was assigned to a three-member CIA team. It was learned they were not out of the Paris station as had been claimed. Were they working deep cover under Edgar Cole? They had been there for months. Yet, the blackmail attempt had only been issued a few days ago. Maybe this mission was all a ruse. She decided to stick around long enough to find out. It was the least she could do. Her head spinning, it was getting difficult trying to keep the names straight and the identities in order.

Somewhere, hopefully soon, this had to make sense.

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Now, all she needed to do was stay alive. Nora was hot on the trail of finding the real Julie - Chris - Rose. No longer a ghost. Three mysterious CIA operatives all rolled into one. Not knowing what to expect, it led her to Switzerland. Her better sense told her she should have gone back home.

It was too late now. She was way in over her head. Would Nora be seen as a friend or foe? Only one way to find out. View all 12 comments. Dec 09, Marialyce rated it liked it Shelves: She is a mother, a drama teacher, a wife. She is also a spy. Nora has just been recruited by a spymaster who offers her a top secret mission. For Nora taking on the identity of a Chris Waverly was too good an assignment to pass up. Chris Waverly was a legend in the department but as is told to Nora, Chris is a phantom, a made up person. It is a name that is shared by many agents who work all around the world.

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The bad news is that a 3. The bad news is that a ransom note has appeared which threatens to blow the cover off these agents, and for some of them that means death. Chris accepts the mission and travels to Paris where she enters a world of being stalked by assassins, lied to by he own people, and eventually ends up in the Swiss Alps where she comes face to face with the real truth behind the Chris Waverly name.

For those who enjoy the intrigue of the spy business, this was a fine novel. It is the third of the Nora Barton series, but certainly can be read as a stand alone. Thank you to Tom Savage, Random House, and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this novel for an unbiased review. Dec 19, Dave rated it liked it Shelves: The Spy Who Never Was is a light spy novel. The central concept is that the CIA for years had attributed its activities in various parts of the world to a single spy who never actually existed -Chris Waverly. But, it was important nevertheless to the Agency to let the legend grow.

In order to draw enemies out into the open, Nora Baron whose name is a palindrome is given the identity of the imaginary spy and sent to Paris. Nora, despite having years of experience, is a bit of an amateur and has The Spy Who Never Was is a light spy novel. Nora, despite having years of experience, is a bit of an amateur and has a real life as a housewife and mother.

A lot of the usual spy versus spy things are here from who can you trust to what is the real mission. A more hard-edged, more realistic feel might have increased its appeal. Oct 15, Lee rated it it was amazing. First of all what a great book! Nora Baron is a drama teacher, mother and wife but every now and then she leads the life of a CIA operative.

In this case she is sent in undercover to assume the identify of a spy, one who is not real but represents three other operatives who are also working undercover. As the story progresses it seems that everything that Nora has been told about this mission may not all be true and the man who recruited her, Edgar Cole, may have his own agenda.

I will not say a First of all what a great book! I will not say anymore as I do not want to give the plot away. This is a very clever and well written book with an exceptional plot, great characters, intrigue and lots of surprises along the way. I read this book in one sitting as I could not put it down.

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If you like a great spy story then this will be a real treat. Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for the chance t read this book in exchange for an honest review. I will now be reading more of Mr Savage's work. Apr 13, Jeanie rated it it was amazing Shelves: My first of read of the Nora Baron Series and I was pleasantly surprised. A thriller that takes you to many different places and with interesting characters. I now dream of going to Switzerland because of the vivid description thru Nora's eyes.

Nora a drama teacher married to a CIA agent has been asked to take the identity of a spy who never was - Chris Waverly. A government agency is being blackmailed to reveal her identity thus putting many in danger. This is Nora's dream job. A job that puts her passion to work - acting. Playing the part and observing others. I think that is what appealed to me on this read. Her observations and how she worked thru them to find the "real Chris Waverly".

Once she lands in Paris to smoke out the blackmailers, she observes a man following her. Her contacts in Paris seem off and she is on high alert. She contacts a family friend that is a Frenchman and wannabe American slanger. Enjoyable fella that one. As her time in Paris becomes intense, she decides to go rogue. It is using her observations and her talent to become someone else that she uncovers a deeper sinister plot.

I do want to mention that this is a clean thriller which was another surprise. It is refreshing to see that you don't need to be vulgar to be engaging. Jan 23, Tonstant Weader rated it it was ok. The Spy Who Never Was is an espionage thriller with an appealing and unusual spy protagonist. Nora Baron is not an official spy, but she is married to one. Her husband Jeff is a former field agent who is now a supervisor with a desk job.

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She is a drama teacher whose reached the big five-oh, and an occasional consulting gig with the CIA though she is untrained in the kind of skills one would expect her to have, like what to do when someone is going to kill you. Did you know acting equips you with The Spy Who Never Was is an espionage thriller with an appealing and unusual spy protagonist.

Did you know acting equips you with many of the skills that make a great spy? Also, lists are good. Nora is called to play the part of The Spy Who Never Was, a cover identity that was retired, but now some hacker has discovered that identity was false and is extorting the CIA for millions as exposure would threaten operatives around the world.

Nora will go to Paris and pretend to be that spy in hopes of drawing out the hacker. Her trip to Paris is right out of the guidebooks, meals at the best restaurants and so on, all in hopes of drawing out the hacker. Well, more than a hacker is drawn from the woodwork and suddenly Nora realizes all is not as it appears and perhaps she has been drawn into a deeper, more dangerous game than they promised. I think Nora Baron is appealing.

I love that her name is a palindrome and her husband calls her Pal. I appreciate that the story is fair. Nora does not hide information from the reader, we know what she knows when she knows it. In the end, though, I thought this book failed readers. It is very flat and reminds me of an old Silhouette Intrigue except, of course, they would never have a fifty-year-old main character. The sense of place felt mediated by a guidebook rather than experience.

The Spy Who Never Was is entertaining. I like Nora, but there is no real suspense. She is far too nice to fail. I never felt she was in real jeopardy. Nov 28, Heather Fineisen rated it it was ok. This is the third book in the Nora Baron series. Perhaps the story would have been enhanced by reading the first two. I like that our heroine is almost 50 years old and a drama teacher who sometimes works for the CIA.

The story itself has a lot of players and often didn't flow really well.



The descriptions of place were detailed. The ending came together with an improbable tidy ending. Not a series I will be revisiting. Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley. Nov 25, Cathy rated it did not like it Shelves: He husband Jeff had been a field agent for years for the CIA only recently getting a desk job in New York running international ops. By then, Torres was repenting of his absurd action and believed he would never be discovered.

Everything indicates that it was in that moment that the act of revenge conceived by the writer of that missive in the past ran smack into the vengeance of others. The journalist would have no chance to walk out with an acquittal. A couple of years later, from prison, Torres would analyze the official press with the self-criticism that has been part of an artifice for a long time.

The arrest occurred on a February morning. His youngest daughter was crying while they conducted a thorough search of the house. They took video cassettes, notepads filled with his precise handwriting, eight sheets detailing the work on the Santiago de Cuba aqueduct, a work notebook on the balance of the public health sector, weather reports, documents with ideas delivered to the military sectors during Bastion , photocopies of letters from the spy Antonio Guerrero to his son, two letters from Torres to Raul Castro, among other materials. A prosecution witness, an agent from the Specialized System of Protection S.

SEPSA , said that he found the envelope there with the diskettes. A bucket of cold water fell on his hopes of seeing a reduced sentence. In the midst of this, a man who talks like a TV anchorman now spends his days. Once, long ago, he narrated the socialist paradise — and the stains that should be eradicated to perfect it — with his voice and his writings. At night, when the guards turn off the light and call for silence, he places under his mattress the sheets filled with tight handwriting that will later be put in improvised envelopes.

On this passion for writing letters from prison, he now hangs all his hopes of being set free.