#TheSummerGuests #NetGalley This is the second book in the "Martini Club" series but is perfectly capable of being read as a stand alone. Great writing, s you would expect from Tess Gerritsen, plenty of action and drama and twists and turns to keep the reader on their toes. I am really warming to the characters of Maggie Bird and co and I can't wait for the next installment in this series. A great 5 star read.

The Summer Guests is the second book in the series of ‘The Martini Club’.
I read this as a stand-alone and it was easy to follow without having read the first installment.
When a visiting teenager goes missing on her first vacation in Purity, Maine, the already overworked acting chief of police Jo Thibodeau can do without the interference of a group of retired CIA agents who want to use their skills to help her investigate the disappearance.
A cosy crime in the style of The Thursday Murder Club, this novel is full of well-developed and likable characters.
A fun and engaging story, expertly plotted with tightly woven twists and turns throughout.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

I love Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series, but I just can't develop the same excitement for this series. The writing is great as always, but I don't feel as attached to these characters and the books are much slower which I don't love. The story here was fine, but it kind of dragged in the middle and then it never really got as exciting as I wanted it to get. There were also so many characters, both new ones and ones from the previous book that it was sometimes hard to keep track. If you like a cozy mystery this one is for you but it wasn't really my thing.

When a young girl dissapears and a close friend is suspected, Maggie Bird and co are drawn into another of Jo Thibodeau’s cases.

Missing girl Zoe is one of the summer visitors vacationing on Maiden Pond in the cottages owned by the Conovers, Greenes, Tarkins, and Arthur Fox.

The Tarkins are disgraced after a terrible incident with their father in the 70s. The others are a tight-knit clan with shared secrets.

In their search for Zoe, the police find a skeleton in the pond. What has Zoe walked into, will they find her alive, and what other secrets does Maiden Pond hold?

I much prefer Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles series and haven’t developed the same attachment to the Martini Club. A middling thriller which is a take on cosy crime with a peppering of ex CIA.

The first Tess Gerritsen book for this reviewer and the story stands so well on its own that I was unaware that it is the second book in a series, featuring the ‘Martini Club’ - a group of retired secret service personnel who ostensibly meet for martinis and a book club, but who really love solving crimes. When a teenage girl goes missing, police are at a loss where to begin looking for her and the Martini Club become involved, not always with the enthusiastic support of the police, but they plough on regardless, and undoubtedly add plenty of necessary skill, patience and extraordinary experience to help find the missing girl. There are many characters here, but they are all well drawn and there is no confusion - just a cracking good story and some very accomplished writing!

Excellent writing as always from this author and a great mystery.

I love these characters, you will enjoy these books if you like The Thursday Murder Club and even if you don’t because although the premise is similar this is less Agatha with more of an edge.

This was a DNF for me. I love crime novels, but this one had too many characters who weren’t followed up on soon enough after being introduced for the reader to remember who everyone was and keep the storyline straight. Due to this, I gave up 10% of the way through the book as it was a chore to read rather than gripping me

The Martini club is back with the second in the series and this time a girl goes missing from the lake and the club get involved in the investigation to find out what happened to her.
I enjoyed this one, but didnt love it as I do with the Rizzoli and Isles series. The characters of the Martini club are great, but I always feel like I want to spend more time with them rather than what's happening elsewhere.
The crime itself was intriguing, lots of potential baddies that kept me guessing throughout.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, The Spy Coast, so was thrilled to receive an advance copy of The Summer Guests from NetGalley.
It’s great to be back in the company of the Martini Club, a group of retired spies who seem to have ended up somewhere where their skills are sometimes needed to help out the local police chief (whether she likes it or not). This book sees the arrival in Purity of Susan and Ethan Conover and Susan’s daughter Zoe. They have come to Purity for a memorial service for Ethan’s father, but then Zoe disappears and a lifetime of family and community secrets start to unravel.
The book bounces off in several unexpected directions, keeping the reader on their toes. The characters are believable and it’s nice to see the growth in confidence of police chief Jo.
A very enjoyable read.

A totally satisfying and fun read!

I kind of ‘fell into’ reading this book straight off the back of a Lee Child short stories that my brother bought me for my birthday. And wow am I glad I did! I’ve read Tess’ books before but I don’t think I’ve had Martini Club book.

Everything about this book was brilliant. Well paced, structured and with lots of mystery and puzzles to solve. I enjoyed the banter between the Martini Club members and the hostility of the family involved.

An excellent read! I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who loves a good mind boggle. And I cannot wait to read more from this series.

Thanks you to NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Just as good if not better than The Spy Coast Tess Gerritsen’s secondMartini Club book is a total delight. It is a beautifully written artful thriller with twists turns and red herrings all the way through.

Maggie Bird and her friends interact seamlessly and help their new friend, acting police chief Jo solve a young girl’s disappearance.

Of course it’s not as simple as that but the reader is drawn in by the strength of the plot and characters and the descriptions of life in Maine where tensions exit between year round residents and newbies visiting for the summer.

I can’t wait for the next one!

The Summer Guests” is the second novel in The Martini Club and I enjoyed it as much as the first, I liked the characters and found the storyline intriguing and full of twists and turns.

First of all.. WHAT

This book has so many clues, sub plots, red herrings and history in, my mind was in over drive working out what I thought had happened (I was so wrong). I love Tess Gerritsen and I am so so happy she is doing some cozy crime.

I saw a review that said "The Thursday Murder Club on Steriods" and I cannot agree more. They drink tea and this is The Martini Club so that says it all!

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I hope there is more to follow. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the ARC.

Having read the first book in the Martini Club series I was excited to see that a second book was available enabling me to catch up with the characters.
A group of former CIA agents have retired to Maine and enjoy meeting up, supposedly for a Martini book club but really to solve crimes.
In this episode, a teenage girl, Zoe, daughter of a “Summer Guest” disappears. She is part of the extended Conover family, recently adopted step daughter of, author, Ethan and step granddaughter of matriarch, Elizabeth.
There are many suspects and police detective, Jo Thibodeau has her hands full particularly with another Detective breathing down her neck. Maggie, Declan and the rest of the crew resolve to help, particularly when Maggie’s neighbour is accused of her abduction and Maggie knows that he can’t possibly be guilty.
When there are further discoveries and secrets start to come to the surface the Martini club are in a race against time to find Zoe alive.
I liked the way the chapters were to.d from different viewpoints including Susan, Zoe’s mother, strange neighbour, Reuben who has a grudge against the Conovers, Detective Jo and of course Maggie and her friends. This helps to ratchet up the tension.
This is an exciting follow up to the first book which introduced the reader to all the characters who are in this story. Although it is easy to read “The Summer Guests” as a stand alone I highly recommend reading “The Spy Coast” too as it is a great book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK, and of course Tess Gerritson for this advanced copy in exchange for a review.

This was the first book that I’ve read from Tess and when I applied for an advanced copy I want aware that this book was part of a series. I hadn’t read the first in the ‘Martini Club’ series but soon found myself lost in this book and enjoying every moment of it. I didn’t find I lost out on having not read the previous story, and there were nods and mentions to previous events that made me feel like I wasn’t necessarily missing anything but I definitely want to go back read the first one now. It was a good mystery, set in a usually sleepy town where the number of residents increases during the summer and no one trusts anyone. There is the family dynamics mixed with the ‘Martini Club’ watching from the sidelines and desperate to use their former CIA training to solve the crime. I enjoyed the writing and would love to read more.

I am grateful to netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication.
I hadn’t read Tess Gerritson before. This is a run of the mill murder case with lots of clues and red herrings. It is well written and flows well although some of the characters are rather two dimensional.
The story includes the ‘Martini Club’ - apparently a group of retired CIA operatives who ‘assist’ the local police when a body is found. They appear to have been in an earlier book and this book depended a little too much on that foreknowledge.
There is plenty here for conspiracy theorists.

I absolutely loved the idea of this book and thought the author handled both concept and execution very well. The portrait of a woman trapped with chilly in laws was also very well drawn. However I felt the tension sagged a little in the middle and the plot would have needed a few more twists and turns to keep me enthralled.

I thought this was great. I really enjoyed the first book in the series and was eagerly looking forward to this book. I think the characters are really interesting and fun I would love to have a martini with them ! The story kept me guessing and not being able to work out what was going on ,very clever writing as you would expect from this author and was superb .Highly recommend this book.

I enjoyed the first novel in the Martini Club.series and this second outing featuring a group of retired CIA agents and the local police chief in a small Maine town is a compelling, fast paced read. The characters and plot were well written and tight. I have been a fan of Tess Gerritsen for years and I look forward to the next book in the series.

Requesting this book I did not realise it was the second in a series featuring the 'Martini Club' - a group of older friends with a 'spy based' past living in Maine. I gather there was probably a lot more background in the first novel explaining exactly what they did in their former working lives but here we get more hints and veiled conversations about it. That didn't spoil the book for me in any way - just made me wonder about the detail a bit.
The book starts with an early '70s prologue which set me up for expectations of a more brutal book than the story that followed: a bloody incident on the streets of Purity, Maine. We then jump forward to present day and a missing girl - disappeared from the lake side home her mother and step father are visiting extended family. Acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau is stuck and the Martini Club members led by Maggie Bird cannot ignore a mystery...
For the most part (aside from the prologue and a couple of F bombs) this reads more like a cosy crime - albeit a very well written one (the two should not be considered exclusive of course, but often are) - and while the (apparently) amateur sleuths being dismissed by the local authority as 'meddling' (Murder She Wrote is even invoked at one point), this does have more substance: Thibodeau is more receptive and appreciative (if occasionally exasperated) by the help, and the plot is more complex, with more turns, than a typical 'cosy' (again - I must stress not ALL cosies)
Despite jumping in after the start I enjoyed this one a lot and will go back to read book one as a result.