Bryony (her PoV), Irish, 17, pink hair, arrives at Heathrow after a year of travel. Her luggage is lost. She tries to contact her elder sister, who lives in London, but gets no reply. She quickly get a catering job and a place to sleep from Irish contacts. She finds herself serving at an event in the irish Embassy. She has a place at an elite London college come autumn.
Steve Hunter (his PoV), CEO of Xylex security systems, has an appointment at the Irish embassy, set up by Eva in PR. Eva's Russian, an ex-Olympiad. On the way he checks who his wife Marissa is meeting in a cafe. Marissa (her PoV) wonders how he knew where she was, and whether he believed her story when she'd found her with nobody. Marissa is Bryony's sister. She got a 1st from Trinity but her husband discourages her from working. She volunteers for a homeless charity.
Rob Power, CIA, is having a video meeting with Scotland Yard about cyber-terrorism. Mike is a UK detective, a widower.
The embassy event is about woman in science. Anna, a prof, is there, from Trinity. Her sister was killed in Paris by terrorists. She's having an affair with Rob. She has PTS. When a bomb goes off outside the embassy she panics. Bryony calms her. They like each other at first sight. Neither likes Steve. A bomb goes off in a bus by Selfridges.
Marissa's handbag is found down a side-street by Selfridges. She's gone missing. The cafe owner says she was with a man who wasn't her husband. Bryony thinks Steve might have used the terrorism event as a cover to get rid of his wife.
Marissa and Steve have a gardener/odd-job man, someone who Marissa had saved via the charity. He's black.
Rees is Steve's colleague. They went to the same school in Charleston, USA.
Steve is found by Bryony, hung in his garden. There are clues that it might have been an interrupted white supremicist murder.
Two-thirds through, Marissa re-appears. A week before she'd stolen a USB stick from Steve and Rees. The bomb gave her a chance to disappear - she's changed her appearance and rented a shabby room. She's considered witness protection. She'd overheard Steve and Rees talking about the hoaxes, describing them as a success. They wanted to blame to go onto Muslims. She goes to Mike's to tell him what's happened. Mike is her lover. He didn't know anything. He'd suspected her as Steve's killer. She gives him the USB stick. He suggests that she hides out in Ireland.
Time goes back to the time of the explosions. Rees's PoV. He was considering Steve as a weak link.
Marissa sends Bryony e-mail anonymously, suggesting a meeting. Anna advices against accepting the invitation. She goes herself and gets kidnapped outside Dublin airport by Rees, pretending to be a taxi driver. He's keen to find the incriminating USBstick and tells Anna everything. Without telling Anna, Bryony has gone too. Police snipers and a helicopter surround the house where Anna and Rees are. When Rees leaves Anna in the house, Bryony (who doesn't know where Anna or Marissa are) knocks him out. After that the book takes too long to end, Marissa is pregant. Steve was sterile and was a long-term undercover CIA operative. Maybe he monitored his wife because he knew she was in danger?
"He half smiled to himself" sounds odd to me.
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