NORTHERN SPY
by Flynn Berry (W&N £16.99, 304 pp)
Two sisters working in Belfast — one a producer for the BBC who has an infant son, the other a paramedic — lie at the heart of this elegantly wrought story about the perils of not being what you seem.
Tessa is at work at the BBC when footage of an IRA robbery at a petrol station comes in. She is astonished to see her sister Marian pulling on a black mask and taking part.
She cannot believe it. Both girls were brought up to oppose Republicanism and, besides, she’s supposedly on holiday by the sea, miles away from Belfast.