A Treachery of Spies

By Manda Scott, Penguin Random House, 2018, 540 pages
Reviewed by Janet Cleaveland, January 6, 2021

Manda Scott’s crime thrillers are never easy reading — not the plot line, not the characters with multiple names and identities, and certainly not the back-and-forth between historical periods.

“A Treachery of Spies,” Scott’s second novel centering on police Captain Inèz Picaut, opens with the present-day murder of a woman in Orléans, France. She is about 90 years old and has been killed in the manner of traitors to the Resistance in World War II — “two to the chest, one to the head.”

And her tongue has been cut out.

Why now? Why at all?

For one thing, revenge is never far from the surface in “Treachery.” Neither is violence nor betrayal. For another, the war’s intrigue and fallout have never ended for some. Both sides have secrets to keep buried.

That’s the situation for Captain Picaut as she investigates the grisly murder and two that follow. She deals with international spy agencies, politicians and modern-day power brokers even as she learns about 1940s spying operations, coding clues and a Nazi informant whose identity isn’t clear until the end.

Scott uses the back-and-forth plot structure in “Into the Fire,” her first Picaut mystery in which the captain solves a 2014 murder that hearkens back to Joan of Arc’s fight against the English. “Treachery” is a stand-alone book but contains references to Picaut’s investigation of the fatal fire and its consequences.

I liked “Treachery.” The mole for the Nazis was a surprise and so was the older woman’s killer. However, I had trouble remembering all the characters, their aliases and their evolving familial relationships. I had to reread parts closely, hoping to discover the traitor in pivotal scenes, especially at a 1944 wedding and a 1957 shootout in the Jura region, near the French-Swiss border.

Sure, the reader knew who the Nazi bad-ass was, but not who was supplying him with information about the Resistance and even D-Day plans. Because I couldn’t easily figure out the spy (or spies), I began paying closer attention to broader ideas author Scott might be relating about our political situation. Here’s one example:

Theo, aka Céline, dies in the 1957 shootout. She had left a long and sometimes rambling letter to her cousin. (He had to decode a message to find the letter, such were the skills of these two.) Céline made the point that World War II would have far-reaching consequences for us, even today:

They were the best Germany had to offer and they are being maneuvered in at the highest level, not just into the intelligence agencies, but to the other arms of American government… . These are not stupid men. They will not drape swastikas over their balconies, or demand that Jews be roasted in ovens, but neither will they abandon their certainty of a perfect Aryan future, free of colours, races, temperaments they don’t like, purged of anyone who doesn’t fit the perfect model, who will refuse to work for the greater glory of flag and nation, for the greater wealth of the dominant few.

I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading fiction. And yes, I had to ask questions anew about how World War II racism might influence 2020.

The Proud Boys and George Floyd’s death under a police officer’s knee are just two among many recent examples of this nasty WWII legacy.

Peace to you, my fellow book pals. Here’s to 2021 and the squashing of racial tensions that continue to simmer in America.