SELENA MEAD

Selena Mead is an agent with Section Q.

She was born Selena Brennan, raised in the lap of luxury as the daughter of two parents who were each extremely wealthy. Her father, an ambassador, traveled extensively around the world and Selena saw most there was to see as she grew up and learned to feel comfortable in many unusual places. She attended the best schools and went to the best parties. She certainly didn't suffer from want as she grew up and she knew she would always have plenty of security. It was excitement that she had precious little of and no prospects of any.

As the series begins, Selena has just graduated from one of the Seven Sisters universities. Her marriage to Raymond, a scion of another rich and influential families, was set to take place six months after the Commencement ceremonies and her mother was making sure it was the event of the year. But for Selena the chance to do something interesting and unplanned was pulling on her.

She elected to take a cruise to Europe and then a series of visits to the places she knew growing up, a chance to meet old friends and reuse the many languages she had learned like French, Spanish, Italian, German, and even a dialect of Arabic spoken in North Africa. It was on the last leg of this trip, a stop in Berlin, that changed her life forever.

The events in the first book detail her foray into the world of espionage and how she came to become involved with the highly secret Intelligence bureau known only as Section Q, run by the personable Hugh Pierce. It also explains how she meets Simon Mead, an agent with Q, falls in loves with him, marries him, and settles down for a life together. It does so rather quickly, allowing eight years of marriage to pass in just a paragraph as the story moves to the death of her husband and her entry into the spy world herself to catch the killers.

Selena is highly intelligent and resourceful. She is also a wonderful example of the transition of the role of women in espionage. She does not shirk from danger or the threat of death and she is very capable of using her beauty, position, and charm to help out in her assignments. Mostly, though, she is best when she uses her very impressive intelligence. Mead is one extremely smart and gifted woman.

The two chronicled adventures of Selena Mead are easy to handle and were moderately fun to read. The character is interesting and certainly intrepid but the plots are a big weak and predictable.

That being said, I liked the fact that Mead is not a shrinking violet nor is she a femme fatale. She moves quickly from being a pampered rich girl with her life planned out for her to an independent, strong-minded woman who can take care of herself and does not need a man to protect her.

Having more books in the series like the second one would have been very welcome. I read, however, that Ms. McGerr had tired of the incredibly beautiful, wealthy, and popular agent and wanted to write about someone else. I could understand that but having read these stories some fifty years later, I was saddened when I had read the last one and knew there were no more coming.