Red, White, Blue: A Novel

"A book combining literary sensibility with genre readability doesn’t come along often. Lea Carpenter’s Red, White, Blue is a sophomore novel without slump – a dark thriller with plenty of plot and more meaning. Protagonist Anna’s Cote d’Azur honeymoon is interrupted by a stranger who turns out to be a CIA colleague of her father’s. This nameless stranger narrates the book, and his descriptions of CIA life fascinate: the many burner phones, the cultivation of sources, the constant vigilance. Is this true? It matters not, because Carpenter maintains an internal coherence that makes the plot tauter than a violin string."