A Season for Spies (A Lane Winslow Mystery, 0.5) by Iona Whishaw
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery, World War II
Series: Lane Winslow #0.5
Pages: 192
on Touchwood Editions
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Better World Books
Goodreads

In A Season for Spies, the page-turning prequel to the mystery series Publishers Weekly calls “highly entertaining,” Lane Winslow embarks on her first spy mission in wartime England, while her grandparents’ quiet Christmas in Scotland is interrupted by a mysterious guest.
In wartime England, Lane Winslow has been pulled out of her studies at Oxford and spends her days in London translating for the war office. Things are grim, and it looks like no one is going home for Christmas—that is, not until Lane's commanding officer orders her to drop everything to do just that. He’s loathe to send a woman, but a very important agent needs an escort into the country from an isolated cove in Scotland in just a few days, and Lane’s family connections in the north are the perfect cover for this mission of utmost secrecy.
On rails, wheels, and snowshoes, Lane makes her way up the country through the thick snows, navigating inquiries from old friends, distrustful townspeople, and dangerous interference on her race against time. Resourceful, but still untested, Lane will have to use all of her wits to make it out of her mission unscathed.
Meanwhile, Lane’s grandparents are delighted by the news that she’ll be up for the holidays, but their cheery preparations are interrupted by clues suggesting a mysterious visitor has dropped right down into the forest outside their cottage. They might have a British airman wandering around in danger—or someone much more sinister lurking in the woods. Cozy and action-packed, this prequel to the beloved Lane Winslow mysteries shows readers just where Lane got her mettle.

My Review:

The Lane Winslow historical mystery series has been recommended to me any number of times. That’s not really a surprise as it strongly resembles the Maisie Dobbs series which I have enjoyed very much, but has come to an end with last year’s The Comfort of Ghosts, set at the end of Maisie’s war in 1945.

Lane Winslow is at the beginning of her war, the same war, in 1940 when this prequel begins. Which goes a long way towards explaining why I picked this up, and especially why I picked it up now. Lane Winslow’s series, beginning with A Killer in King’s Cove and with a 13th entry, A False and Fatal Claim, coming next April, is set post-World War II. That series stars the person that Lane’s wartime experiences made her.

This prequel is the story about the making of that character, about the young woman who in 1939 was voluntold to report to Wormwood Scrubs (an outstation of the better-known – at least postwar – Bletchley Park) for her language skills, about to be caught up in the secret world of the intelligence services, set on her first mission by a reluctant supervisor who has been equally voluntold that he will send a young woman for this job and he will send Lane Winslow and his own misgivings and outright prejudices about women doing what he believes to be a man’s job be damned. Or he will.

No, we don’t know exactly who gave him HIS orders, not even at the end, but I do really wonder and hope we find out over the course of the series – which of course I now intend to read. After all, I need a comfort read to take Maisie Dobbs’ place, and Lane Winslow is primed to fill that place very nicely indeed.

Escape Rating B: I know, I know, I haven’t talked much about the actual book in hand so far. I’m about to remedy that. OTOH, it was terrific that this holiday-set prequel came out this fall, because it was the perfect book both to get me into the Lane Winslow series AND it was the perfect book to kick off my #2025HoHoHoRat reviews. (Fair warning, it’s looking like this year’s holiday reading is going to include a LOT of dead (human) bodies. The dead turkey bodies are kind of a given for the holiday!)

I like to start a series from the beginning – or go back and pick up the beginning on the occasions I do get in in the middle, and A Season of Spies took care of that nicely.

Very much OTOH, however, the story is a bit predictable, because Lane’s story isn’t all that different – different wars notwithstanding – from Maisie Dobbs‘ or Bess Crawford’s. It also has hints of Foyle’s War, particularly Christopher Foyle’s relationship with the Special Operations Executive at the end of his war, and may even extend to something rather like the Sparks & Bainbridge series, where their war was rather like Lane’s and their postwar adventures are set in the aftermath.

While the whole clandestine spy operation on the home front that Lane finds herself in the midst of, along with the discovery that one of her old if not dear friends is a traitor, carries shades of The Jössing Affair by J.L. Oakley.

So I could generally see where this story was going. At the same time, the addition of Lane’s rather intrepid grandparents was a very nice touch, especially considering just how much that scenario seemed like the Keystone Kops at the beginning and turned out to show exactly where Lane got her moxie and her mettle by the end.

In other, and fewer words, A Season For Spies was a terrific intro to Lane Winslow and her series that this reader is thankful for this Thanksgiving Weekend. I’m looking forward to getting caught up with Lane and her postwar adventures, beginning with A Killer in King’s Cove, the next time I’m looking for a murderously good comfort read.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Today is Black Friday in the U.S. – and in the parts of Canada that border the U.S. because retail competition is a thing. Once upon a time, Reading Reality hosted a Black Friday Giveaway Hop because this isn’t a day for a whole lot of blog traffic – even back in the day when there was more blog traffic in general.

To celebrate Black Friday, I’m giving away a little bit of something to thank you for reading this review, for following in general, and to celebrate my participation in the #2025HoHoHoReadathon – even though this giveaway is NOT officially part of the Readathon. Consider it a Thanksgiving treat.