Review – The Sound of Red Returning

Liesl Bower is an accomplish pianist, playing for audiences around the world. She is no stranger to the White House or for playing for presidents—but she is unaccustomed to finding scary, scowling faces in the audience. The face of a man she’d seen threatening her music mentor fifteen years earlier, shortly before he was murdered.

Now, it seems as if something has happened to set both Russian and CIA agents on her heels. Intelligence suggests that Liesl possesses a coded message critical to a resurgence of Soviet power.

The Russians are in a frenzy to find the code before the Americans. But Liesl doesn’t have any idea what she possesses, she only finds herself on a run for her life—a run that will take her through the wounds of her past, the love of man she never thought could be hers, and the prevailing power of God.

The Sound of Red Returning is the first book I’ve read by Sue Duffy. It is book one in the Red Returning trilogy, and a very nice start. The book did begin rather slowly, but did pick up about midway. There are flashes in time period from present time to fifteen years earlier, and back, and I found the jumps a bit jarring. I did fall in love with Liesl, an innocent bystander, so to speak, thrust into an international spy ring and fleeing for her life without knowing for sure why and what they were after.

I did enjoy reading The Sound of Red Returning despite its slow start and the confusing ending. I will look for Ms. Duffy’s other books in this series. If you like political suspense then you will want to look at The Sound of Red Returning.