Amanda Cole is a brilliant young CIA agent, following in the footsteps of her father Charlie. But Amanda’s posting in Rome is a sleepy one. She’s listless and looking for action when, on a hot summer day, it walks right through her door. A lowly Russian operative is desperate, telling her that a US Senator is about to be assassinated on an overseas trip to Cairo. Amanda believes he’s telling the truth, but her superiors do not, and they determine that the best course of action is no action at all.

But when the assassination occurs, Amanda is suddenly thrust into an international conspiracy as she tries to find out why the senator was killed. What did he know that made him a target of the KGB and the Kremlin? Amanda pairs up with fast-talking, take-no-bullshit Kath, a brash older woman, and legendary spy, to get to the bottom of the case. The investigation takes them from Rome to London to Moscow to Helsinki.

As Amanda and Kath get closer to solving a case that involves double agents, blackmailed CEOs, illegal arms transfers, yachting oligarchs, and more, one question keeps coming back to haunt Amanda: why was her father’s name written down in the senator’s notes, notes that he seemed to be putting together right before he died? In order to get to the bottom of this international plot of blackmail, murder, and lies, Amanda must decide where her loyalty lies: with her country or with her family.

When professional ambition and family loyalty collide, how far would you go to see justice done?

That’s the question CIA operative Amanda Cole must wrestle with in Anna Pitoniak’s smashing new novel, The Helsinki Affair. I love a tense spy thriller and was enthralled from the jump with this propulsive, globetrotting story.

When a Russian informant warns of the impending assassination of an American senator, Amanda is the only one who believes him. After the senator dies, Amanda is thrown into a worldwide conspiracy. With only experience and instincts to guide her, Amanda begins to untangle the web of international intrigue only to find her father at the center. Will she protect him and risk the career she prizes above everything? Or will Amanda sacrifice her beloved father and shatter his reputation to prove her fealty to the agency to which she has dedicated her life?

Pitoniak has taken the classic spy thriller and given it a stylish update with a brilliant and flawed female lead. It crackles with energy from the very first page, and the unexpected ending will leave readers begging for more. Relentless and riveting, The Helsinki Affair is fresh and twisty as the lemon peel in a Vesper Martini.