Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman

Published by Knopf on July 3, 2018

Safe Houses draws some of its background from a government spy agency called the Pond that was in a rivalry with the OSS (and later the CIA) before the government disbanded it in 1955. The Pond then continued its existence as a private organization because people who like to think they are doing important work sometimes have difficulty admitting that they are no longer the center of the universe.

Safe Houses is told in two alternating time frames. Part of the story takes place in 1979, when Helen Abell, new to her CIA posting in Berlin, is placed in charge of safe houses, an administrative duty deemed suitable for a woman. While making an unscheduled inspection of a safe house, visitors arrive and she overhears (and accidentally records) part of their conversation. She doesn’t know who they are or how one of them got a key; neither man is one of the six people who are authorized to have one. They seem to be talking in a sort of code. Later, she tells Clark Baucom about it. Baucom is her lover and a much older field agent. He tells her to burn the tape and never disclose what she heard to anyone. Of course, the obscure references on the tape to “the Pond” eventually gain clarity.

When she returns to the safe house to retrieve the tape, another visitor shows up (an agent she knows) and she overhears a sexual assault in progress. Helen intervenes, but her intervention puts her career is in jeopardy. Her life is also in jeopardy after it becomes clear that she intends to expose a CIA assassin who is also a serial rapist. That part of the story has Helen fleeing Berlin and making contact with a couple of female CIA employees who may or may not be on her side.

The other part of the story begins in 2014, when a Maryland woman and her husband are shot dead in their bed by their developmentally disabled son, Willard. Henry Mattick is in town when it happens, conducting a clandestine investigation into the family for a reason he doesn’t understand. When the son’s sister Anna wants to hire Henry to find the reason for the murders, Henry’s employer tells him to accept the assignment, to get inside the house, and to make copies of any documents he can find. It won’t be surprising to the reader that the 2014 story quickly links to the 1979 story.

Despite its lurid subject matter, Safe Houses is told in a measured style that lends credibility to the narrative. The plot blends suspense with enough action to keep the story moving at a good pace, but Dan Fesperman doesn’t short-change characterization. The novel is a bit short of atmosphere (other than place names, it doesn’t convey much sense of being in Berlin or any of the novel’s other locations), although Fesperman does an excellent job of conveying the limitations that were placed on women in society (and particularly in male-dominated organizations like the CIA) in 1979. In a time when the #MeToo movement is focusing attention on how powerful men feel empowered to abuse women, Safe Houses shines a spotlight on the importance of standing up for what’s right, and on the risks that people take when they decide to do the right thing.

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