Mrs Spy by M.J. Robotham

Published by Aria,
15 May 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-03591422-7 (HB)

We first encounter forty-five-year-old Maggie Flynn, Mrs Spy, wearing an elderly lady disguise, one of many she dons whilst plying her clandestine trade.  Today she is watching a block of flats in London’s Russel Square.  It’s almost four years since she lost her husband, but he’s never far from Maggie’s thoughts and today is no exception.  She wonders what Davey would have said about her standing in the rain waiting for her target to appear.  She still loves him, still misses him, but when her person of interest leaves the building, she’s straight back to her undercover duties.  Despite foul weather and a bunion that’s playing up, she follows the man to a park near Smithfield market.  She’s looking for information and photographs that can be used by agents at Leconfield House, MI5 Headquarters, also known as the Spy Shack.  Maggie doesn’t work at the HQ building, as a Watcher, she’s far too lowly.  Instead, she works out of a nearby building known as the Stable, an uncomplimentary name ascribed to the base she shares with other Watchers.  Serving their country from the bottom of the nation’s security hierarchy, Watcher’s tackle assignments that are invariably tedious and uncomfortable. 

Until now, boredom has been Maggie’s most fiendish enemy, but all this is about to change when she receives orders to ‘babysit’ a man being kept at an MI5 safe house.  The task has unexpected consequences for Maggie as it leads her to suspect that her husband’s demise may have been more sinister than she had previously been told. So begins her search for the truth of what really happened to Davy on a fateful, sultry August evening in 1962.  It is a quest that will discover uncomfortable truths about the man she loved and lost, as well as the country she loves and serves.

Maggie Flynn is a captivating protagonist; brave, inquisitive, caring, and direct.  She narrates most of the story in the present tense which adds to the immediacy of the tale and invests the story with Maggie’s viewpoint and sometimes quirky internal dialogue.  After Davey’s death, she and daughter Libby moved in with Maggie’s mother, Gilda.  The large Edwardian terrace in Islington, north London provides a haven for Maggie who is the only woman in a team of six Watchers.  Libby and Gilda are both strong female characters, they ground Maggie and create a domestic environment that is refreshingly different from the male-dominated world in which she works.  Maggie acknowledges, rather than accepts, that throughout the Secret Services men rule the roost - this is the 1960s after all.  Yet, whilst men hold higher rank, women are its formidable gatekeepers.  An unsung army of women secretaries and filing clerks restrict access to their male bosses along with papers containing state secrets.  Indeed, some women have quietly pierced the ‘the old boys’ network.  Hilda Grayling, for example, is the severe and demanding boss of the Watchers, whilst Bea Baglin oversees the sacred Registry containing files crucial to national security.

Mrs Spy is a witty and wonderful romp through one of the most influential decades of twentieth century England.  Through its wonderful array of characters, the novel proffers a glorious smorgasbord of allusions to the social and political tensions, music, fads and fashions that defined Britain and its capital during the period. The plot moves fast and teases with red herrings that discombobulate the spy and her readers.  The story is written with style and flair.  It is funny, thrilling, and at times unexpectedly moving.  I loved it.  Highly recommended.------
Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

M J Robotham is a former journalist and midwife. Her first novel was published in 2018. The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux was published by Aria in 2024. 

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.