DOUBLESPEAK

Lena Stillman has put her life as a gangster behind her by forging a path for herself as an elite codebreaker for the Allies in the Second World War. After the war, Lena finds that – thanks to the looming threat of the Cold War and the reappearance of faces from her outlaw past – peacetime can be far from peaceful.

Shaken by her role in the disappearance of Corporal Link Hughes – and by her own misjudgment of his character – Lena yearns for an opportunity to redeem them both. Then she receives a shocking message containing Link's potential location: Siam. Embarking on a clandestine rescue mission to Bangkok, Lena is reunited with shadows from her past – including loyal friend Byron who is eager to escape his safe, dull life, and the attractive yet dangerous “William Yardly.” As personal and political allegiances shift in the postwar maelstrom, it seems impossible to know who is good or bad, innocent or culpable, and whether they are motivated by love or revenge. German and Russian spies seem to be everywhere and Lena wonders if her time might be running out.

Overlaying rich historic detail and an intricate plot, Doublespeak is an entrancing sequel to Alisa Smith's first novel Speakeasy, which received the honor of being a Walter Scott Prize Academy recommended book of 2018.

ALISA SMITH is the bestselling co-author of The 100-Mile Diet (Random House Canada) and the author of Speakeasy (St. Martin's Press; Douglas & McIntyre). The 100-Mile Diet won a Canadian Culinary Book Award, and a Cordon d'Or award of literary merit in the US. Chapters/Indigo named it a Best Book of the Decade. She lives in Vancouver, BC.