I’ve had Alias Emma by Ava Glass calling to me from my TBR for months and months so my enormous thanks go to Amanda at Moonflower for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for the next book in the series, The Traitor. I’m delighted to share my review today.

Published by Penguin on 14th September 2023, The Traitor is available for purchase through the links here.

The Traitor

LONDON. EARLY MORNING.

A body is found in a padlocked suitcase.

Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it’s murder. And it’s personal.

She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them.

To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs.

But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her.

Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous.

As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her . . .

My Review of The Traitor

Emma Makepeace has a new case.

The Traitor is absolutely cracking and I loved every moment of this fast paced, exciting and gripping thriller. What works so well is the authoritative way it is written because the reader is entirely consumed by the action. Every dangerous moment feels plausible and scarily possible given what we’ve learnt about Russian behaviour in recent years.

Whilst there are moments of violence, the greatest tension in The Traitor comes through the cat and mouse intellectual challenges Emma encounters so that this feels sophisticated as well as thrilling to read. It’s quite hard to say much about the plot because I need to leave others to find out what happens for themselves, but I found it compelling and utterly addictive to the extent that I simply put life on hold until I’d read it all.

Emma Makepeace is brilliantly drawn. She’s determined, feisty, quick witted and brave, but there’s enough stubbornness and vulnerability in her to give her surprising depth. She’s a full-blooded person, rather than a character; she’s akin to a female James Bond but with added understanding and humanity in her actions, making her all the more appealing. Ava Glass deftly weaves in aspects of Emma’s previous cases so that the reader understands her, but the breath-taking pace of The Traitor is still maintained. 

I found the settings so clever. Once action moves to the yacht, The Traitor becomes a kind of locked room mystery combining the very best of traditional crime thrillers with a thumpingly good modern bent. Again, it’s not possible to say too much about the plot as it would spoil the story for others. 

The Traitor is a fast paced, gulp it down in one sitting, thriller that convinces even as it excites. I absolutely loved it.

About Ava Glass

Ava Glass is the author of the espionage series Alias Emma. A former civil servant and journalist, she once worked closely with spies, and that experience fuels her writing. Ava is the pseudonym for an international bestselling author who has written more than ten crime novels under another name. Her books have been bestsellers in multiple countries, and have been published in more than twenty languages. Alias Emma is currently being developed for television by The Ink Factory.

For further information visit Ava’s website where you can join her book club and win free books, or follow her on Twitter/X @AvaGlassBooks, Instagram and Threads.

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