Tess Gerritsen
The Summer Guests
From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen―with a startling connection to their own pasts.
The Writer’s Dossier 4/21/2025 – The big Tess Gerritsen interview
DOSSIER: Living in Maine among a community of retired spies, is there any kind of spy tradecraft you’ve picked up over the years and employed in your own life? We’re hoping someone taught you how to execute a J-turn at some point. If not, The Dossier Guy can help you out with that.
GERRITSEN: The only tradecraft I’ve picked up is from reading books! The spies who’ve retired here are very private and not about to spill their deepest secrets. A few have, however, revealed their previous occupations to me. When I’m invited out to dinner, there’s almost always at least one of them (or their adult offspring) at the table. And living in a small town, there’s lots of gossip about who was CIA. We all knew, for instance, that our previous library director was CIA. We all knew that one of the local B&Bs was operated by a CIA retiree. And we all know that our local Camden Conference, a yearly event focusing on global affairs, has a number of retired spies in the audience. As for J-turns? I know it in theory, but I’d rather not subject my car to practicing it.
Keeper of the secrets
DOSSIER: Your new Martini Club series that features a host of retired spies came out of your own real life exposure to actual retired spies, right? How much of your research involved internet searches vs conversations with actual people? Did you get a lot of, “Tess, this is completely off the record!”?
GERRITSEN: Yes, I get a lot of “this is off the record.” Which of course means I can’t tell you about it. Like my sources, I keep secrets.
Create now … edit later
DOSSIER: Where and when do you like to write? What kind of atmosphere works best for you?
GERRITSEN: I write in my home office. I have a gorgeous view of the ocean, where I can watch storms come in and bald eagles and seabirds. I write in absolute silence, so I can hear my characters’ voices in my head, and my first drafts are with pen and paper. Yes, I’m old-fashioned that way; it keeps the words flowing. If I see my words on a computer screen, I feel the compulsion to edit, which is not what you want to be doing when you’re creating the story.
Her best friend
DOSSIER: You’ve written over 30 books, made a feature documentary film, play the violin, you have your M.D. from Stanford University, and the show “Rizzoli & Isles,” is based on your 13 books in that series. Clearly, as a NYT bestselling author, you’re an overachiever. What’s something on your bucket list that you’d still like to accomplish?
GERRITSEN: I’d like to improve my Italian. (Duolingo is my best friend.) And I have a bucket-list destination (something I mention jokingly in THE SPY COAST): Madagascar!
The Last Word
DOSSIER: Is there anything else you’d like to reveal in your Dossier today? (We like headline-making breaking news and it gives our graphics department something to do other than play video games all day.)
GERRITSEN: THE SHADOW FRIENDS focuses on one member of the Martini Club, Ingrid Slocum, whose marriage and serene retirement gets shaken up when an old lover—and her former colleague—comes back into her life. After a speaker at the local global affairs conference dies of Polonium poisoning, this ex-lover pulls Ingrid back into the spying game. Off they go in pursuit of the assassin—with Ingrid’s husband Lloyd in pursuit.
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