The majority of the WW II thriller, City of Spies by Mara Timon is set in Lisbon, Portugal. As the only European capital that was both neutral and a port city, Lisbon became a centre for intrigue during World War II. With the German Embassy just across the street from the British Embassy, there was a constant flow of espionage, subversion, sabotage and reconnaissance. The city was overflowing with refugees, exiled aristocrats, diplomats, businessmen and, spies from all countries.

Into this city arrives, Elisabeth, a female SOE agent who just narrowly escaped capture in France. She is given the disguise of Solange, a French woman sympathetic to the Germans. Her mission is to get close to the Germans and pass her gathered information on to the British. In a city where no one can be trusted, Elizabeth must work her wiles with both skill and care.

I really enjoyed City of Spies, but would definitely call it “Espionage Light”. There is as much attention given to fashion and romance as there is to politics and danger. I was relishing the book right up to the last page when I suddenly realized that the story was going to be left somewhat hanging and there would be at least one more book to come. Since Elizabeth was fun to read about, I immediately went and secured myself a copy of the next book, Resistance. ( )

I actually read "Resistance", the second book in this series first, then this novel. However, I didn't feel disadvantaged in any way because of it. SOE agent, Elizabeth de Mornay, code name Cecile, was a great protagonist - fiery, intelligent and capable. There was also a large cast of secondary characters who all added to the story in one way or another.

The author did an excellent job blending fact and fiction together to create an engaging story and I enjoyed learning about the important role Portugal played during WWII. There were plenty of twists and turns, and the tension definitely builds to the final chapters. The ending left readers wanting to scramble for the next book. Overall, a very entertaining, thrilling read. ( )

I must confess that I do not really know much about what happened during world war two and I have never really been interested in war stories, films, books, fact or fiction.. So when I started reading City of Spies I did so not knowing if this was really going to be my sort of book.
I soon decided that it was a book that I would enjoy reading and that was probably because the main character was a woman. So I continued reading and I did learn a lot from the story. For a start, I did not know what a `SOE' was because I had never heard of ` Special Operations Executive' before and I also did not know that Portugal was neutral during the conflict.
So not only did I learn a lot of history from the book, I had a great time reading a very exciting story. ( )