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A Spy in Exile    by Jonathan de Shalit Amazon.com order for
Spy in Exile
by Jonathan de Shalit
Order:  USA  Can
Atria, 2019 (2019)
Hardcover, CD, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Jonathan de Shalit's A Spy in Exile tells the story of lovely and deadly Israeli agent Ya'ara Stein. After being pushed out of Israel's secret intelligence service, the Mossad, she's enlisted by her Prime Minister to set up a secret unit, answerable only to him. He wants someone willing to cross the line, but might have more than he bargained for in Ya'ara.

She recruits and trains an assortment of agents, not your typical spies, but half a dozen imaginative patriots who are able to work under a foreign identity and blend in. When Ya'ara throws her cadets in at the deep end with an initial operation to help her old friend Matthias in Germany, they stumble upon Red Army Faction descendants on a terror blitz in Europe. The puppet masters behind it all work from GRU headquarters in Moscow.

Ya'ara's teams take out a series of targets, one by one, including an innocent bystander and a double agent. There's a strong element of end-justifies-means in this plot. I don't subscribe to it, which lessened my enjoyment in the story. That aside, it's an action packed military thriller, with credible unintended consequences. I expect that fans will read more of Ya'ara and her team of unsung heroes.

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