59 pages • 1 hour read
Tess GerritsenThe Spy Coast
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dangers of Underestimating Powerful Women
In The Spy Coast, Gerritsen explores the challenges powerful women face through the characters of Maggie, Jo, Diana, Ingrid, and even Bella and Callie. Diana and Jo, in particular, illustrate how easily powerful women can be underestimated, even by other women, and how sometimes, such misperception can be dangerous. For example, Maggie uses ageism and sexism to render herself invisible by conforming to society’s beliefs that women in their 60s are ineffectual and safe. Only particularly perceptive people, like Jo, pick up on the disparity between Maggie’s harmless appearance and the knowledge and authority she really wields.
Jo offers an example of the prejudice and obstacles that a powerful woman faces in her professional life. Jo is the interim police chief of Purity, Maine, a position of authority in the small town, but despite her years on the force, Jo is constantly faced with discrimination. Gerritsen illustrates this through Jo’s interactions with Maine State Police Detective Robert Alfond. When he arrives at the crime scene, although “[s]he stood only a few paces away, had raised her hand in greeting, [Alfond] walked straight past her and headed toward her officer” (63). Jo knows what this means, reflecting, “[He] probably thought, Blondie, not important and turned his attention to the man he assumed was in charge” (63). He insults her further when she cites procedural code and “[h]e stared at her a moment, the way one stares at a dog who’s suddenly started to talk“ (64).
Jo uses humor to deflect Alfond’s discrimination, and although she sees his prejudice for what it is, it doesn’t affect her confidence. In fact, his treatment only makes her more determined to be a part of the investigation. Although Alfond has shut her out of his murder investigation, Jo recognizes that Maggie is at the heart of the mystery and chooses to focus her attention there. She shows her intelligence, which Alfond underestimates, with her decision to circumvent him. The progress she makes on her own investigation surprises even Maggie, who realizes she’s underestimated Jo. This shows that, as a “small-town” police officer, Jo does not fit Maggie’s image of an authority figure. While the ex-CIA agents are worldly and involved in international affairs, all of Jo’s knowledge comes from her lifetime of living and working in Purity. The novel shows that this type of experience is valuable too, subverting the trope of the inept local cop that often appears in spy thrillers.
Diana embodies this theme in a different way. Chapter 1 establishes Diana as powerful and dangerous. Two operatives are sent to kill her, but she dispatches them handily, reflecting, “[They] must have been badly misinformed about [their] target” (3). In this instance, Diana was defending herself, and her skills and experience saved her life. However, Diana also shows how that same power can be abused when a tourist follows her down an isolated alley, and she kills him. Afterward, she reflects, “Underestimating [her] was his fatal mistake. He wasn’t the first man to do it, and he wouldn’t be the last” (80). She assumes he was stalking her but doesn’t really know what his motives were. She does not feel remorse for killing him, and this ruthlessness contrasts with traditional portrayals of female characters as caring and nurturing. While Diana is not portrayed as morally good, her backstory explains her need for callousness and shows that, like Maggie, she must live with the consequences of her actions.
Age, Wisdom, and Experience
The Spy Coast explores the way that the experience that comes with age is often ignored by society in general and by younger people in particular. As Jo’s father points out, “Old doesn’t mean over the hill, […] You young folks, you think you already know everything, but we’ve got a lifetime of experience under our belts. Don’t underestimate us” (295). The novel illustrates this statement with the example of Maggie and her friends in the Martini Club. As ex-CIA operatives, they consistently prove that their information, skills, and experience can be leveraged to solve the case. Their investigation operates more quickly and accurately than the state’s or Jo’s, and the group offers Jo information that she otherwise wouldn’t have.
The effectiveness of the Martini Club proves that they’ve lost none of their relevance or acuity. As Maggie reflects, “[H]ere we are, five old spies with five lifetimes’ worth of experience. Retired does not mean useless. Everyone here has brought their individual tricks of the trade” (220). Even small details illustrate this, as when Maggie sits in a restaurant with Ben and Declan, and “as usual, both men sit facing the entrance, a habit they cannot shake, even in retirement” (17). While they talk, Maggie finds herself “[s]urveying vehicles on the street, taking note of who has arrived and who has not […]. Old habits die hard” (33). Even in their small-town retirement, Maggie and her friends use their skills, ingrained from years of training and use, and when the chance comes to help solve a crime, they all jump into action, unwilling to just observe.
Maggie and her friends also use their age to disarm their opponents and appear harmless to further their investigation. As Maggie comments, “Old age confers anonymity, which makes it the most effective disguise of all“ (16). Ingrid illustrates this when she uses her elegant appearance and silver hair to convince people that she is harmless while looking into the investigation. For instance, the man at the feed store hands over security footage because she is “that nice lady on the library board (213).
In a society that prioritizes youth, older people become invisible. Maggie reflects, as she escapes Gavin’s murder, that her age is “now one of my superpowers; I am easy to forget” (287). Maggie and her friends bemoan the way they’ve been pushed aside, knowing that “This new generation looks only to the future, with little regard for the past and what it could teach them. What we could teach them” (344). Despite society’s desire to sideline elderly people, the novel shows that the Martini Club uses their age to further their investigations, proving that they are experienced enough to also recognize it as an asset.
Appearances Versus Reality
In her work as a CIA operative, Maggie’s need to maintain appearances takes precedence over every aspect of her life. For instance, when she falls in love with Danny and marries him, her role-playing continues in her personal life as well. Even after retirement, Maggie continues to consider how she appears to others, and this constant vigilance causes her to doubt her true identity and suspect that others are hiding behind their appearances as well.
Maggie’s concern with appearances is rooted in her need to maintain a double life. In the course of her work, Maggie carefully considers her actions as “[someone is always watching” (105). Even when she does something innocuous, like walk to work, she reflects, “I have to assume they are watching, so every morning when I wake up in my Istanbul apartment, I prepare myself for another day of playing hide-and-seek” (105). Because of this, throughout the novel, Maggie holds her reactions up to how she should be behaving, trying to act like an “ordinary” woman. When she visits Hardwicke’s office, she plays an innocent, somewhat oblivious American wife, a façade that is calculated not to provoke interest or pose a threat. This illustrates the way that her professional life affects her personal life, as she shapes her identity as “Danny’s wife” to fit the circumstances.
This concern with appearances affects her emotional life as well. Because her work is entangled with her marriage, she plays a part even when she is with Danny. For instance, she chooses their honeymoon destination based on a romantic cliché rather than her own personal taste. Such decisions reveal that Maggie’s role as an ordinary woman in many ways represents the life she wishes she were living. She tells the reader, “I’ll tell you what I want. I want an ordinary life with my husband. I want us to be ordinary. Have a cat, tend a garden. Take a walk together on the street, without worrying that we’re being followed” (206). She loves Danny, and their relationship is real, but Maggie’s professional need to shape her appearance causes her to even lose sight of the line between appearances and reality.
Even in her retirement, Maggie still tries to appear ordinary. When Jo wants to make sure no one is hiding in Maggie’s house, Maggie reflects, “It’s a reasonable request, which any woman who lives alone would ordinarily welcome. I nod and pull out my house keys” (41). Even though Maggie is capable of taking care of any threat that may be inside her house, she can’t reveal this because of how she would appear to Jo. She shapes her appearance and home so that “[t]here is nothing flashy here, nothing to make a cop take notice” (42). This behavior protects her identity, but it also limits her relationships and self-expression.
Having a group of friends who are in the same situation eases the tension of having to maintain appearances; the novel implies that, without the Martini Club, Maggie’s need to live a double life in retirement would make her extremely lonely. So, while the Martini Club members cannot fully trust each other, their shared identity as people who are leading double lives makes their situation sustainable and provides them with much-needed companionship.
