The Black Money Murders
(2024)(The second book in the Mr. & Mrs. Jones Spy series)
A novel by Sara M Barton
In this stand-alone spy story, Penny and Peregrine Jones, CIA ‘un-retirees’, are off to Paris to solve the mystery of how CIA Officer Nick Fortune had the misfortune to nearly drown into a vat of wine at a Normandy vineyard.
Using their covers of Lord and Lady Jones of Watchingwell on the Isle of Wight, they join forces with four members of a CIA financial investigations team. Their task? Connect the circumstances of Nick Fortune’s blown meeting with a potential asset at a French vineyard to a Russian ‘black money’ operation in France.
They’re set to sail on a week-long cruise on the Seine River, not only with a dangerous killer, but also with Madame Marie Bernard, the wily counterspy chief of the DGSI and her husband Jacques. The woman reminds Penny of Madame Defarge, Dickens’ infamous knitter of codes. Is Marie Bernard knitting a code into the scarf she is making? The CIA would love to know the answer to that!
Before the riverboat even leaves its dock, a chief inspector of the National Gendarmerie is brutally murdered and tossed into the Seine. Is his murder meant to conceal another murder at the same vineyard?
The CIA team creates cover for itself by forming the Seine River Poker Club. Their nightly penny ante poker games in the main lounge allow them to socialize openly. When they befriend a beleaguered tour manager aboard the riverboat and learn the secrets Sophie has about that Russian money laundering operation, they have no choice but to share what they’ve learned with Madame Bernard, not only to protect Sophie, but also to protect France’s national security.
Like fictional spy-catching heroes Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Penny and Perry are determined to get to the bottom of this espionage case. This ‘who-dun-what’ cozy mystery will appeal to fans of Anthony Horowitz, Robert Thorogood, and Agatha Christie.
Genre: Mystery
Using their covers of Lord and Lady Jones of Watchingwell on the Isle of Wight, they join forces with four members of a CIA financial investigations team. Their task? Connect the circumstances of Nick Fortune’s blown meeting with a potential asset at a French vineyard to a Russian ‘black money’ operation in France.
They’re set to sail on a week-long cruise on the Seine River, not only with a dangerous killer, but also with Madame Marie Bernard, the wily counterspy chief of the DGSI and her husband Jacques. The woman reminds Penny of Madame Defarge, Dickens’ infamous knitter of codes. Is Marie Bernard knitting a code into the scarf she is making? The CIA would love to know the answer to that!
Before the riverboat even leaves its dock, a chief inspector of the National Gendarmerie is brutally murdered and tossed into the Seine. Is his murder meant to conceal another murder at the same vineyard?
The CIA team creates cover for itself by forming the Seine River Poker Club. Their nightly penny ante poker games in the main lounge allow them to socialize openly. When they befriend a beleaguered tour manager aboard the riverboat and learn the secrets Sophie has about that Russian money laundering operation, they have no choice but to share what they’ve learned with Madame Bernard, not only to protect Sophie, but also to protect France’s national security.
Like fictional spy-catching heroes Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Penny and Perry are determined to get to the bottom of this espionage case. This ‘who-dun-what’ cozy mystery will appeal to fans of Anthony Horowitz, Robert Thorogood, and Agatha Christie.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Sara Barton's The Black Money Murders