ARC Review: The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen

The Summer Guests
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Series: The Martini Club (Book 2)
Publication: Thomas & Mercer (March 18, 2025)

Description: From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen―with a startling connection to their own pasts.

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes―and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect―she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.

My Thoughts: In this sequel to THE MARTINI CLUB, a group of retired spies is back on the case when a teenage girl disappears, and Maggie's neighbor is the prime suspect. 

Sheriff Jo Thibodeau is called to the Conover home when Zoe Conover, newly adopted daughter of younger son Eathan, goes missing. While Zoe's mother Susan seems very upset, the rest of the family are seemingly writing the disappearance off as typical teenage behavior. 

As Jo investigates, she learns that Maggie's neighbor Luther Yount was the last one to see her before she disappeared. He dropped her off at the boat dock near her home on Maiden Lake. Despite the fact the Zoe is an excellent swimmer, Susan demands that the lake be dragged in case something awful happened. 

But there are other clues. Her backpack was found along a highway some miles from town and the lake and her cell phone is discovered in the bed of a local lowlife's truck. But Zoe isn't found, and the lake is dragged. Divers find a skeleton that is definitely not Zoe but is a mystery of its own. 

The Martini Club are putting their skills to use to clear Luther's name, find Zoe, and identify the bones found in the lake. Their investigations lead them to a secret government operation that took place at Maiden Lake during the 1970s and a possible identification of the body in the lake. 

Then Zoe is found by some hikers in still another direction from her phone and backpack. She is severely injured from being thrown from a scenic overlook. Brain surgery and other broken bones keep her hospitalized and in need of guarding until the Martini Club manages to put all the pieces together and find the person who wants her dead. 

This was an engaging story told from multiple viewpoints. I liked the way the past and the present were woven together to make a thrilling plot. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.