Trust No One
A World War 2 Espionage Thriller
The truth is worth dying for in Trust No One, a heart-pounding historical spy novel.
In Glenn Dyer’s gritty World War II espionage thriller Trust No One, two Allied spies track down an archive with evidence of their countries’ involvement in the assassination of a French admiral.
In the winter of 1943, a French admiral with fascist leanings is killed by resistance fighters in Algiers. General Eisenhower threatens to pull out of North Africa if the US or Britain had any involvement. Conor, an American OSS agent, and his British spy wife, Emily, are tasked with finding the documents that list all those involved in the killing. Meanwhile, in Lyon, Nazi officers suppress antifascists through a network of French informants with uncertain motives.
Conor comes within inches of being archetypal. He’s a hypermasculine spy in all of the best, if predictable, ways: he takes issue with authority, has a professed hatred of Nazis, and fights his way out of most situations. His characterization is distinguished, however, by the trials he faces, including being knocked unconscious early in the novel and suffering from worsening concussion symptoms, including headaches and memory loss, throughout the rest of the book. Each time his condition is worsened by a fresh blow to the head, Emily and the doctors and soldiers that help them in their pursuit of the archive all recommend that he recuperate, though he reverts to stereotype, insisting on walking it off and powering through.
Conor and Emily navigate a vast world of intelligence and counterintelligence organizations, muddying the lines between the good guys and the bad guys—though almost all either lack duplicity or are willing to claim their dual allegiances. In Lyon, a priest and a doctor both appear to be playing two or even three sides, trading secrets with the resistance forces as well as Nazi counterintelligence and Nazi secret police, who complicate things by competing with each other. The number of organizations involved sometimes obscures the question of whether Conor and Emily are closer than the enemy to achieving their goals.
The book excels in its kinetic language and specificity. The sequences of action and danger—for example, a graveyard shootout and a submarine chase—are propulsive. And vibrant descriptions of settings couple with stomach-churning images of injuries and maimed bodies, securing attention throughout.
Loyalties are tested in Trust No One, a wild, gruesome, enthralling, and adventure-filled World War II spy thriller set in duplicitous Nazi-occupied France.
Reviewed by
Ben Linder
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