Waving a momentary au revoir to beloved mystery star Aimée Leduc, Black brings back Kate Rees from Three Hours in Paris, Black's successful 2020 foray into thrillerdom. Now the British Secret Service has returned Oregon-born and -bred sharpshooter Kate to Paris with a triple-decker assignment: bring penicillin to a group of sick children, assassinate a high-ranking German operative, and rescue a British agent who once saved Kate's life. Can she do it all? With a 100,000-copy first printing.

In Black's second "Kate Rees WWII" novel (following Three Hours in Paris), sharpshooter Kate is happy to be training soldiers in Scotland after a harrowing mission that included betrayal by her British handlers. When one of those handlers shows up and issues orders for a new assignment in Paris, she is not pleased. Heavily disguised as a Red Cross nurse, she must deliver penicillin cultures to the Pasteur Institute, assassinate a Nazi officer, and rescue her friend Margo, a spy who once saved her life. Of course, the only thing that she can really trust is her reliable Lee-Enfield rifle. The people that she must count on are double and triple agents involved in groups that are rife with political infighting. Readers will have a hard time keeping up with Kate's breakneck-speed trips thorough Paris and even Cairo as she rushes to save Margo, kill the enemies, and get secret Nazi invasion plans, but it is definitely worth the ride. VERDICT Black always delivers a great story featuring strong women. Buckle up and start turning the pages.—Barbara M. Bibel

Set in 1942, bestseller Black's stirring sequel to 2020's Three Hours in Paris finds American markswoman Kate Rees in the Scottish Highlands, serving as a rifle/sniper instructor. Kate, who learned her sharpshooting skills growing up in Oregon, receives orders to travel to London, where British intelligence demands she undertake a dangerous mission to Paris. She must disguise herself as a Red Cross nurse, as her face is well known to the German occupiers who hunted her after her failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in Paris in the previous book. Kate knows only a fraction of the plans at first, but eventually learns that she must assassinate a high-ranking German official and rescue a British agent who once saved her life. Meanwhile, Kate still obsesses about killing Hitler and mourns her husband and daughter, who were killed during a German U-boat attack in the Orkneys early in the war. Black vividly evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of Paris under Nazi occupation. The gritty, determined Kate is a heroine for the ages. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Mar.)