The Sound of Red Returning...Review

About the book:
After losing everyone she loves, concert pianist Liesl Bower has nowhere to go but to escape into her music. Searching for the peace she usually finds in her concertos and sonatas, Liesl can’t shake the feeling that she is being haunted by her past . . . and by someone following her. When she spots a familiar and eerie face in the audience of a concert she’s giving for the president in Washington, DC, the scariest day of her life comes back to her with a flash. It has been fifteen years since Liesl watched her beloved Harvard music mentor assaulted on a dark night in Moscow and just as long since the CIA disclosed to her that he’d been spying for Russia. She had seen that man--that eerie face--the night Professor Devoe was attacked. And now he’s back--and coming for her.

On the run and struggling to rely on the protection of CIA agent Ava Mullins and handsome newspaper reporter Cade O’Brien, Liesl learns she is the prey of an underground cell of Russian KGB agents determined to restore their country to its former Soviet might. But what she doesn’t know is that she is in possession of something--a piece of sheet music--that Russian intelligence is now frantic to find. Inside that music is a secret code, the hidden transcriptions of her deceased mentor, that clearly identify a Russian mole operating inside Israel’s Department of Defense, a mole with enough power and access to execute a daring assassination that no one would see coming.

Caught in a deadly conflict between American and Russian undercover agents, this innocent young pianist is just trying to survive her own personal trauma. Through it all, Liesl must learn that no matter how dark her world grows or how fiercely her enemies pursue her, God is still in control--if only she can yield herself to His grace.

As a child of the 60's and 70's and a teenager in the early 80s, I grew up very much aware of the Cold War.  Russia was the enemy and spies were real.  As a young adult, I began working for a government laboratory in the late 80s, where we had security clearances, badges and guard gates.  One poster that I remember being on the wall of our copy room showed the earth with a satellite orbiting it and two red lines.  One went from Russia to the satellite and from the satellite to our location and cautioned that anyone could be listening.  I took Russian classes as a young college student because I'd grown up fascinated by that country and I was studying that language as the Berlin Wall fell and Cold War communism became a memory, or so we've all believed.

The Sound of Red Returning takes us into today's world of the CIA and KGB where national secrets are still desired, spies still lurk in our midst and the art of guarding and discovering intelligence is an integral part of national security.

When Liesl Bower's beloved mentor was murdered and revealed to be a Russian spy, her life was disrupted in ways she couldn't imagine as the CIA didn't believe that she wasn't an accomplice.  But life does go on and Liesl became a renowned pianist, putting her past behind her. 15 years later, information comes to light that leads Russian and American intelligence agencies to her door and Liesl must discover what information she has, where it is and who she can trust.

I enjoyed this novel so much.  These characters are likeable and you care for them immediately.  The intrigue and suspense are fast paced, but perfect and not predictable.  I loved the musical aspect and the cleverness of sending codes through sheet music.  Amazing.  I am thrilled that this is the first in a trilogy and I look forward to more from Sue Duffy.

Thanks to Amy at Litfuse Publicity for the opportunity to review this book.  You can learn more about Sue Duffy here.  You can purchase your own copy here.  You can read an excerpt here.  You can see other reviews and tour stops here.

Read 1/12

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4/5

Comments

  1. Guess my comment didn't publish. Here goes again...

    I'm happy to know how much you enjoyed my latest novel. Thanks for the review and for visiting me in my world.

    Blessings!
    Sue Duffy

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