The Martini Club Books in Order

The Martini Club series introduces a different side of Tess Gerritsen's storytelling, trading busy Boston streets for the coastal village of Purity, Maine and swapping young detectives for retirees with long, dangerous careers behind them. At the heart of it all is Maggie Bird, a sixty something former CIA operative who is trying, not entirely successfully, to live a quiet life on her small chicken farm.

In The Spy Coast, Maggie's past quite literally lands on her doorstep when a woman's body is dumped in her driveway. The killing is tied to a disastrous mission from years earlier, a covert operation that still haunts her. To survive the renewed attention, she turns to her closest friends, a handful of former agents who meet regularly for drinks and gossip and jokingly call themselves the Martini Club. They may complain about bad knees and aching backs, but they still remember every trick they learned in the field.

Their unofficial investigation quickly collides with the work of Jo Thibodeau, Purity's acting police chief. Jo is used to handling noisy tourists and petty crime, not professional assassins, and she is wary of Maggie's half truths and too capable neighbors. The push and pull between seasoned spooks and a determined small town cop gives the books much of their energy.

The follow up, The Summer Guests, continues the uneasy alliance. After the events of the first book, both Jo and the Martini Club know that trouble can reach even the most postcard ready corner of Maine. When new threats surface during tourist season, the series once again plays with the contrast between scenic harbors and the messy fallout of old intelligence work.

A third novel, The Shadow Friends, takes the group beyond their comfort zone to a coastal resort hosting a conference on global risks. When a murder coincides with the reappearance and disappearance of one member's former colleague, Maggie and her friends have to dust off their tradecraft on unfamiliar ground while Jo pieces together what is really happening back home.

Across the series, Gerritsen keeps the tone brisk and fun without losing the sense that the stakes are real. There is camaraderie, banter and good food, but also the loneliness of people who have always had to lie about who they are. For readers, it is a chance to see what happens to spies when the official missions end yet the consequences of those missions never quite do.