In 'Red, White, Blue,' High Peaks And Low Blows

A book combining literary sensibility with genre readability: It happens, but not as often as I'd like. So when I cracked open Lea Carpenter's Red, White, Blue a few weeks ago, I was thrilled to find that this second novel from the author of 2013's Eleven Days is a dark spy thriller with plenty of plot but even more meaning – and no hint of sophomore slump.

If you're accustomed to devouring these kinds. Her protagonist is Anna, a young woman whose delayed honeymoon along the Cote d'Azur is interrupted by a stranger who turns out to be a CIA colleague of her father's — a father she believed ran a Manhattan advertising behemoth. Given that Anna's father died in a freak avalanche just before her Alpine wedding, she is willing to listen to the stranger — and many of the book's brief, taut chapters are narrated by him as he attempts to glean information from Anna without alerting her to the fact that there's a serious exfiltration in place, in China, and Anna's public acknowledgement of any suspicion around Noel's death might jeopardize that operation.