The Third Encounter by Sara Woods

5 Days of Sara Woods — Day 3

Ooo! I know I keep saying this, but this one is my favourite in the series, for sure! Part espionage thriller, part detective fiction, The Third Encounter, is book three in Sara Woods’ 48-book Antony Maitland series. Dean Street Press Ltd. are republishing the first five books in this series on 2 December 2024! To celebrate, I’m posting a review of one book per day leading up to the big day. I’ve already posted reviews of the first two books, Bloody Instructions and Malice Domestic. If you haven’t read those posts, you may want to read them first and then come back to this one. In the review for Bloody Instructions, I talk about the author and provide a more in-depth overview of the main series characters.

Antony Maitland is junior barrister to his uncle, Sir Nicholas Harding, Queen’s Counsel of the Inner Temple, London. As well as working alongside his uncle, Antony, and his dependable wife, Jenny, live in a mostly self-contained apartment on the top two floors of Sir Nicholas’s house at Kempenfeldt Square. 

This one starts with an absolutely gripping prologue, which provides a snapshot from November 1943. In the first chapter we jump to present day, which is sometime in the late 1950s in London. Antony's old friend Dr. Henry Martin has been strangled and Antony and Sir Nicholas are defending, Gerry Maitland, Dr. Martin’s cousin and heir, on suspicion of murder. But Antony suspects someone from his past might have something to do with it. Antony goes to one of his former colleagues from his work during the war to put the feelers out, and finds himself working along with the Secret Intelligence Service. 

It was past nine-thirty when he turned into Kempenfeldt Square. The night was clear and frosty, but at that hour few people were about. Across the square a car door slammed, and a man set out to cross, skirting the dusty patch of garden in the centre. Then at the corner he paused, standing in the deeper shadow cast by the bare branches of the sycamore that grew there. Something about the tall figure standing there renewed Antony's feeling of disquiet. He told himself impatiently that it was foolish; in that light he could not see the stranger clearly, let alone make out whether he was, in fact, being watched. This was what came of letting memory run riot over the past. Now imagination had taken over, and here he was, peopling the square with his own private ghosts. (17)

It is scenes like the one above that make is apparent how frightened Antony is of this person from his past. Antony is not prone to flights of fancy and while he dismisses his concerns as coming from an overactive imagination, the reader is not so easily convinced. It’s no wonder then that Antony finds comfort in the house in Kempenfeldt Square and in coming home to the familiar scene of his uncle and wife by the study fire.

He saw as he went in (as he had seen so often before) Sir Nicholas, stretched out at ease before the blazing fire, raise a hand in languid greeting; and Jenny, curled up with a book on her lap and her back to the door, turn with a quick smile of welcome so that, as she moved, the lamplight tangled strands of gold in her brown hair. Because of the contrast with the place he had just left, the comfortable, familiar scene was for a moment vivid and unexpected, so that he looked at it blankly before he crossed the room and bent to kiss his wife. (10)

This one provides us with insight into Antony Maitland’s past, while still treating us to cosy domestic scenes like the one quoted above. We find out just what Antony was up to during the Second World War, how he sustained the injuries to his right arm and shoulder that still plague him, the effect his experiences had on his mental health, and why in the first two novels it seems like he is still fighting an invisible enemy. We also find out about the personal tragedy Jenny faced during this time. Honestly, if you aren’t attached to these characters by the end of this book, you must be some kind of monster!

“He said, ‘I’m afraid you may have to resign yourself to the fact that your husband is getting mixed up with that gang of thugs in Whitehall again.’” [Jenny's] anxiety faded as she saw his frown give way to laughter.

“And I’d rather know,” she added.

“Of course. But there's nothing . . . a watching brief, John said, and that’s fair enough.” Her gaze was steady and disconcerting, and he looked down again at the fire. “I couldn't refuse,” he said, after a moment, and there was something like desperation in his voice. (51-52)

It’s this desperation, this fear, that keeps Antony going through to the end of the book. He keeps agreeing to things he would rather not do, because he knows that if he ever wants to have peace of mind he must follow this thing through to the end. His wanting to run away, but instead running towards trouble is part of what makes this book so tense and the character of Antony so compelling.

The first two books in this series are set exclusively in London. In this one Antony has a brief visit to France and some of the key scenes from during the war take place in France too. Oh, and this one starts on a cold evening in January? The perfect book to send chills up your spine while you hunker down by a roaring fire with a hot cuppa at hand!

Thank you to Dean Street Press Ltd. for kindly sending me a copy of The Third Encounter for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

Tomorrow we will be talking about book four, Error of the Moon. I hope to see you then!

*All page numbers are from the ebook and are not likely to correspond to the paperback edition.