Both a heart-racing thriller and a story of complex family relationships, Trust Her is Flynn Berry's second novel exploring the impact of political violence on generations of Irish citizens. In this sequel to Northern Spy, the sisters who fled IRA reprisals in the North for safety in Dublin find they haven't outrun their pasts.
Tessa and Marian Daly lead uneasy lives as they adjust to their new identities and perform their roles as young mothers while living "with a security alarm, with double-paned windows, with extra locks on the doors," fearful that terrorists will find them. Marian had been the one to recruit Tessa to the IRA when the two lived in Belfast, but now it's Tessa who's forcefully blackmailed into "turning" an MI5 agent to work for the IRA. Duplicity informs Tessa's every act, with Marian as her only confidante. Both Tessa and Marian are sympathetic characters, and revelations about their history in Northern Ireland cast Tessa as more of a victim. Secrets from her family's past and a dangerous rekindling of romance increase Tessa's vulnerability. But as the tension escalates, Marian acts with death-defying heroism in a surprising climactic scene.
Trust Her is an atmospheric novel about the angst of people with deep loyalties to a cause as well as tender desires to live untroubled lives. Signs of peace circulate at the novel's end, raising hopes that the sisters will indeed find freedom from fear. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.