Thriller

Review: City Of A Thousand Spies by Kathryn Guare

November 14, 2025

After reading the first two books in the Conor McBride series, I was looking forward to the next one. If you are interested in series like Reacher or Jack Ryan (= a Thriller with Action and spies) , this one might be for you. Here you can find a Review of the prior 2 books.

#1 Deceptive Cadence
#2 The Secret Chord

Synopsis:

Conor McBride has made a bargain he may live to regret. Lured by the chance to reboot his career as a violinist, he’s accepted a mission to Prague in exchange for the chance to perform while he’s there. His boss has promised a simple, stitched-up mission, but as he might have expected, it quickly unravels into chaos as an Iranian defection spirals out of control and a renegade MI6 operative threatens to start an international crisis.

As if that weren’t enough, his partner is a freshly trained operative he couldn’t convince to stay home – Kate Fitzpatrick. Conor hopes their relationship is on track to become a different sort of partnership, but his desire to shield Kate from the covert side of his life may be no match for her determination to share in its risks.

Before long it’s clear Conor is going to need all the new skills Kate can offer. Within hours of their arrival in Prague, a mysterious stranger is trailing their every more, and the fabled lanes of this beautiful old-world city are not half as twisted as the secrets everyone is hiding.

Review:

I enjoy the series a lot and was looking forward to reading the 3rd instalment.

Kate and Connor are the spy couple to root for. When send on a mission together they must rely on each other and navigate the balance of being on a mission while still figuring out on how to eb a couple.

Kate basically being a princess comes with an additional list of things to navigate around. For example, the PI following them to protect Kate’s money.
Add that to a mission that started out as being rather simple on paper but became a lot more complicated before it really started. Connor had to adopt along the way balancing out the mission and safety of Kate. We also meet a lot of (fun) new characters, while including also known ones.

Combining this with humour, a lot of snarky comments, us travelling to a different country and the right amount of action and character development. While the stakes where there, it felt a little bit less intense compared to the prior two.

Overall, I was entertained and look forward to the next one in the series.

🌙 Recension: City Of A Thousand Spies (The Conor McBride Series #3) by Kathryn Guare
📚 Genre: Thriller & Crime
📅 Release Date: September 4, 2025
📖 Verlag: dp Verlag
📗 ISBN: 978-2386191312
📱 Read as: Kindle
💸 The book was provided to me by the Publisher and I’m leaving this review voluntarily.
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Pages: 367
⭐️ 4/5