Northern Spy

January 4, 2021
Belfast BBC political news producer Tessa Daly, the protagonist of this moving contemporary thriller from Edgar winner Berry (A Double Life), is struggling to juggle her job with caring for her six-month-old son, whose custody she shares with her ex-husband, when she sees a TV clip showing a gas station being robbed by a gun-wielding IRA trio. One of them is her younger sister, Marian, whom Tessa believed to be vacationing on the north coast. Detective Inspector Fenton and his team, who subsequently interrogate Tessa, seem convinced that she must also be IRA or, at the very least, privy to her sister’s activities. It turns out that the local authorities don’t know an awful lot about the now-fugitive Marian, whose efforts to press Tessa to assist her in her current clandestine mission puts both mother and baby at risk. The tension becomes at times almost unbearable as the plot takes increasingly sharp, sometimes improbable twists. It’s a measure of the author’s skill that she never loses sight of the humanity of her characters. Berry remains a writer to watch. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary.

Starred review from February 1, 2021
Berry delivers a taut and compassionate thriller as young mother Tessa is drawn into working as a double agent in the Irish Republican Army to protect her sister. It's been years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, but tensions in Northern Ireland remain at a constant simmer. Tessa moves through the simple motions of her life: taking care of her infant son, working at the BBC News Belfast bureau, spending time with her mother and sister. The physical isolation and beauty of her home village hint at the possibility of a world in which one doesn't always have to be alert for terrorists; Tessa is old enough, however, to remember the Troubles, and she fears that the IRA will never truly surrender. Still, it comes as a shock at work one day when she sees a video of her sister participating in an IRA robbery. But even more shocking is the revelation that comes from Marian herself once she is able to reach out to Tessa: She's been a member of the IRA for seven years, drawn in by their talk about economic inequality, and has recently begun feeding information to MI5 in order to create space for peace talks. After a bomb she created for the IRA failed to blow up, though, she's under constant surveillance and can no longer meet with her British handler. And so Tessa joins her sister as a double agent: She's accepted by Marian's crew and asked to do increasingly dangerous tasks for the IRA, which she then reports to her handler. Days of espionage are balanced by quiet moments with her son as Tessa comes to realize that putting herself in danger is justified, even necessary, if she wants him to grow up in a safer Ireland. Berry's use of short chapters, often divided into several smaller episodes, is particularly effective in reflecting Tessa's fragmented sense of loyalty and safety. This is not a book of action, though there is plenty, but instead a greater reflection on personal choice and consequence. A poignant and lyrical novel that asks what is worth sacrificing for peace--and provides some answers.

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Starred review from December 1, 2020
Berry juxtaposes the pleasures, wonder, and frustrations of life with a baby against a journalist's life in contemporary Northern Ireland. Terrorism first encroaches on Tessa Daly's life as a single mother when she sees her sister, Marian, on TV donning a ski mask to rob a bank with IRA members. Baby care and work fade to insignificance as Tessa scrambles to determine where her sister is, whether she was kidnapped by the terrorists and forced to do take part in the robbery, and how to get her home. That's just the start of this twisting thriller, though, as Tessa becomes far more involved with the terrorists' cause than she ever planned, risking her life to save all she loves. Edgar-winning Berry (Under the Harrow, 2016) unobtrusively uses Tessa's agonizing journey to portray life in the IRA and the nonchalance of the British forces toward Northern Ireland's locals, in the process dropping readers headfirst into the emotions of living in conflict. Berry's portrayal of Irish life is uncannily accurate; give this to all who love an emotional thriller, but also to Irish and Irish American patrons seeking a no-shamrocks look at Ireland in the not-so-distant past.

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