The Bastille Spy by C. S. Quinn

          Attica Morgan is one heck of a heroine.  She may be from the wrong side of the tracks and not at all at home in London's High Society but her paternity means that is where she belongs.  Strong, smart and with an overwhelming sense of justice nothing is going to stop Attica and her Mangbetu knife.  Throw in a spy ring, a pirate and an impenetrable prison and you know you are in for a bumpy and breathtaking ride.

The book takes you from Empress Catherine's Russia to the salons of London; from the parliament buildings of Westminster to an elegant Pirate rig; from the streets of Revolutionary Paris to houses of ill repute; from the plaster mines under Paris to the very heart of the Bastille.  Attica never stops for long and drags the reader tearing along with her.

There is just enough historical accuracy thrown in to the mix to give the story a nice edge of veracity.  Certainly the tension on the French streets is well realised on the page and there is a genuine sense of peril.  I particularly loved Robespierre's misunderstanding of the codenames - even so early in the book that gave me a little chuckle (although for some reason my mind kept going to The Black Fingernail rather than The Scarlet Pimpernel).

The plot swoops along at a fair old lick and you do need to pay attention to keep up.  There is a little bit of switching up the points of view going on so you do get to hear directly from Robespierre (actually, he is quite sympathetically drawn in the book and not the cardboard cutout villain that he easily could have been).  There are also little sections narrated by the duped Grace Elliott but the majority of the tale is told by Attica.  This is no bad thing as she is a fun, and flawed, character with a strong voice that comes alive in your mind as you read.

There are some strongly realised action scenes, particularly when you toss Jemmy in to the mix and the assault on the Bastille is both highly enjoyable and perilous.  Loved the swooping from on high in true piratical fashion.

This was a fun story that gave me an awful lot of pleasure in it's reading.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM READERS FIRST.