Massawa
Kit Thomas thinks she is ready. Ready to go undercover in 1942 for the fledgling American intelligence Office of Strategic Services. Ready to deploy to North Africa where neither Allies nor Axis are prevailing. Ready to detect and either help or thwart friendly and enemy agents embedded in newly liberated Eritrea. Ready to fall in love. But she quickly learns that she isn’t as ready as she thinks.
Webber develops the story through Kit’s first-person tale, limiting the reader to what Kit knows—or thinks she knows. Clues to the unreliability of her narrative are woven into her thoughts. Bright hot days in the port of Massawa near the Red Sea alternate with cool dark nights in the capital of Amara in the mountains, as Kit navigates a maze of mirages. Hostility among supposed allies and hints of betrayal add confusion to Kit’s already dangerous mission.
Massawa provides a personal viewpoint on what might otherwise be a typical spy thriller novel. Separating allies from enemies requires insight she lacks. Everyone hides some issue, goal, or motive. She’s not even sure she can trust her British MI6 partner, Mark Williams, with either her heart or life. Increasingly alone in a conflict-filled night, Kit risks her life to complete her mission.
Kit learns that war is ugly and dangerous, much of it hidden behind successive layers of illusion. Both the nasty side of the fascist regimes and the history of Eritrean exploitation provide well- and little-known backgrounds. While this novel is free of gratuitous profanity or sex, a few scenes involve graphic violence. This excellent historical fiction is set in a little-remembered corner of World War Two.
