The Justine Byrne Series
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The Traitor Beside Her
Now available!
Justine Byrne can’t trust the people working beside her. Arlington Hall, a former women’s college in Virginia has been taken over by the United States Army where hundreds of men and women work to decode countless pieces of communication coming from the Axis powers.
Justine works among them, handling the most sensitive secrets of World War II―but she isn’t there to decipher German codes―she’s there to find a traitor.
Justine keeps her guard up and her ears open, confiding only in her best friend, Georgette, a fluent speaker of Choctaw who is training to work as a code talker. Justine tries to befriend each suspect, believing that the key to finding the spy lies not in cryptography but in understanding how code breakers tick. When young women begin to go missing at Arlington Hall, her deadline for unraveling the web of secrets becomes urgent and one thing remains clear: a single secret in enemy hands could end thousands of lives.
“Evans’s characters are vividly drawn, elevating this story and its revelations about women’s little-celebrated contributions to the war effort.”
—Washington Post (read the full review)
—Library Journal
“The Traitor Beside Her is a well-researched wartime spy story which blends suspense with sharp characterization as Justine Byrne turns code-breaker in the hunt for a ruthless enemy agent.”
—Martin Edwards, author of the Rachel Savernake and Lake District mysteries
“Mary Anna Evans’ great talent in The Traitor Beside Her is to turn her readers into espionage agents….For Justine Byrne, missing or misinterpreting a clue can be fatal. For the reader, such vicarious mystery and danger are pure enjoyment.”
—Larry Baker, author of Harry and Sue
The Physicists’ Daughter
The Nazis are no match for the physicists’ daughter
New Orleans, 1944
Sabotage. That’s the word on factory worker Justine Byrne’s mind as she is repeatedly called to weld machine parts that keep failing with no clear cause. Could someone inside the secretive Carbon Division be deliberately undermining the factory’s war efforts? Raised by her late parents to think logically, she also can’t help wondering just what the oddly shaped carbon gadgets she assembles day after day have to do with the boats the factory builds…
When a crane inexplicably crashes to the factory floor, leaving a woman dead, Justine can no longer ignore her nagging fear that German spies are at work within the building, trying to put the factory and its workers out of commission. Unable to trust anyone―not the charming men vying for her attention, not her unpleasant boss, and not even the women who work beside her―Justine draws on the legacy of her unconventional upbringing to keep her division running and protect her coworkers, her country, and herself from a war that is suddenly very close to home.
Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Awards
“A fascinating and intelligent WWII home front story with a smart heroine who uses her upbringing and knowledge of physics to protect a US factory from a traitor.”
—Rhys Bowen, NYT bestselling author of two historical mystery series as well as several internationally bestselling historical novels, including The Venice Sketchbook
“With its smart, Rosie-the-Riveter heroine and intriguing wartime mystery, The Physicists’ Daughter is a fresh and fascinating glimpse of life on the American home front during WWII. Replete with spies, saboteurs, and save-the-day scientists, the book is a page-turning adventure that sparked my mind and opened my heart. I never wanted the story to end!”
—Amanda Skenandore, author of The Second Life of Mirielle West
