I've read and loved all the Maggie Hope mysteries. She is an American/British girl living in England during WWII who ends up being a spy. She's had some scary adventures that have brought her near death, and now she knows too much about the next stage of the war. The powers that be are afraid she'll talk, so they send her away to Killoch Castle on a remote Scottish island. There she meets other agents who are also being held for various reasons. Unfortunately, someone is killing them off one by one and Maggie is determined not to be one of the victims.
The plot bears a resemblance to Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, and initially, I wasn't sure if I liked it. However, the book is so well written that I overcame my reluctance.

I highly recommend this book, and the others in the series, Thanks to Bantam, Random House and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review,

Recommended for fans of the Maggie Hope series!

The latest installment finds Maggie in exile, due to what she has learned and experienced in “The Paris Spy.” This book reminded me of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None," as it is set on an island and the guests are dying off one by one. MacNeal does a great job of building atmosphere and describing the setting. I found myself continuing to root for Maggie.

My two caveats for this book are: 1) If it has been a little while since you read “The Paris Spy,” it wouldn’t hurt to page through to refresh yourself on the storyline; 2) I would recommend reading the rest of the series before reading "The Prisoner in the Castle."

Compelling WWII fiction, full of atmosphere, spies, and mystery. I've read #1 and now #8, and I have gotten myself into a dilemma, because I NEED to read everything in between to see how Maggie got to the mess at Scarra Island (so many books, so little time). A lot of background research was done for this and is expertly woven into the narrative. The author keeps this series fresh and unique by her change of scene and imaginative plots. Excellent mystery series.

MacNeal writes a very interesting, and I don't want to put it down, tale. It is lightly based on fact that England did have a 'prison' for their trained spies that they thought might share information with the Germans. There is murder or more in the castle on the isolated island in western Scotland. Maggie Hope has been on this island for 5 months so far and she needs to find out who is killing these spies off one by one.

THE PRISONER IN THE CASTLE

The Prisoner in the Castle is a very enjoyable murder mystery set on the island Scarra off the Western coast of Scotland. British SOE agents, each fully trained to kill, are being kept there against their will for the duration of WWII due to a variety of secretive reasons. They start to die mysteriously one by one and tensions heighten with suspicions of one another.

They are held in Killoch Castle, medieval in design and decorated with way too many taxidermic prizes. And they are stranded due to a severe storm, radio communication with the mainland spotty at best. Several surprisingly eerie events occur throughout, and twists and turns kept me guessing all the way to the end.

This book is the 8th in the Maggie Hope Mystery Series. It is the first of the series that I have read and it fully works as a stand alone novel. Because it was so pleasantly paced and enjoyable I plan on reading the earlier books in the series as well.

I thank Netgalley, Susan Elia MacNeal, Bantam and Random House for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

I very much recommend it.

I would like to thank Random House and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The Prisoner in the Castle is the latest entry in Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope World War II mysteries. Maggie finds herself a prisoner at Killoch Castle on a remote Scottish island simply because she knows too much about the future invasion and intelligence activities. Her fellow prisoners were all working for the intelligence service in some capacity, imprisoned for the duration of the war and possibly beyond.

Their routine lives are changed when one of the prisoners dies shortly after dinner, the victim of poison. A weekly supply boat is found drifting off shore and out of gas with the captain also poisoned. With no way off the island, it is Maggie who radios for assistance and uses her skills as an investigator to try and find the killer. However, severe weather causes delays in any assistance.

In London, a murder trial’s outcome depends on Maggie’s testimony. As the only surviving witness it is crucial that she appear, yet Intelligence refuses to disclose her location. It is up to DCI Durgin and Peter Frain, working for Churchill, to discover the existence of Killoch Castle.

If you are unfamiliar with this wonderful series, this is a perfect place to start. MacNeal provides enough background to acquaint the reader with her characters. As additional murders occur there is a suspicion that a German agent may be hiding on the island, leading to a fast-moving and surprising climax. This is Maggie at her best and if you are a fan of Christie’s And Then There Were None, you will be thrilled by MacNeal’s The Prisoner in the Castle.

I received an advance copy of this Maggie Hope mystery, and loved it. Suspense, good mystery plot, great catch-up with characters from previous stories and well-developed new characters. Completely appropriate and satisfying ending. Maggie Hope fans will love this one.

This story is full of twists and turns. It reads like Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians." One of the characters/suspects even mentions that book. Maggie Hope is sequestered on a Scottish island, against her will, along with other spies considered security risks. None of her friends or acquaintances know her whereabouts.
The inmates are allowed free rein of the island but no outside communication. A young lady arrives one day, believing she is there for specialized training. And then the murders begin. I found it very hard to put this book down once I started reading it. As always the Maggie Hope books reveal interesting bits of WW2 history as well as a good mystery.

I enjoy WWII stories, but this one had too many holes in it and there wasn't much depth to the characters. I like the premise of damaged spies being sent to an island so they can't leak any information they may have, but there was no one to really care about or any background stories to why they were there. Except for Colleen who seemed to be a big deal in the beginning, but didn't amount to anything when she got to the island. I did enjoy the "twist" at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I looked forward to reading it with anticipation every day. The “who done it?” flowed interestlgy and I appreciated the parellel action between the island activities and the search for Maggie on the mainland. I gave the book 3 stars instead of four stars because I just couldn’t get passed Anna and her behavior. She was just too annoying with the handling of all the situations that arose regarding her fellow prisoners (details not mentioned due to spoilers). Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I am a big fan of this series so I always jump at the chance to read the latest in the series. I was especially eager to read this one after the twist and the end of the last book. I couldn't wait to see where Maggie was going to end up and what she would do.

While I enjoy reading about Maggie I have to say that this latest installment of the series did not hold my attention as much as some of the previous books had. Maggie is essentially a prisoner in this book and is left to figure out why everyone around her is dying. At times it felt to me like it was one big game of Clue. The plot moved a bit too slowly for me and at times I became bored. The action towards the end definitely brought my attention back and I enjoyed where Maggie ended up.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the galley.

Once again this author is able to weave history into this wonderful fictional series. The Prisoner in the Castle involves a clever plot of both murder mystery and espionage genres. The book is a page turner and kept me guessing until the end. Well done!!!!

Susan Elia MacNeal writes the Maggie Hope Mystery series. I have tried to keep up with her writing by reading every book that comes out under that series title. I love her books. The latest book I have read is the eighth book in the series, “The Prisoner in the Castle’.

The book opens with the training of an SOE spy, who has gone overboard with her training and killed a fellow trainee during a dummy mission. She is sent to Killoch Castle where surprisingly other SOE agents are being held. They can have no outside communication, visitors, mail, or calls. They are allowed to walk the grounds and are otherwise provided for materially. Imagine my surprise to find that Maggie Hope is one of the “prisoners” instead of the other way around. It seems that Maggie knows a bit too much information and in order to prevent the possible spread of that information to the Nazis, she is being held indefinitely on the Isle of Scarra. Scarra is almost inaccessible. The island is ringed with tidal pools which make it impossible to escape by boat or otherwise.

The “fun” begins when people start dying, murdered by an unknown hand. One by one they are being picked off. Of course it could be any of them as all of them have been taught to kill quietly and quickly and by various methods. It is up to Maggie to ferret out the murdered before there is no one left.

Because she is needed to testify in an upcoming murder trial her friend or “more than friend” Detective Inspector James Durgin searches for her and goes through channels and around channels to find her. Thankfully, he comes to her aid just in time. So Maggie lives on to go on another adventure and I am faithfully waiting to read about it.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley.com in order to be able to post a review.

4.5 stars

The Prisoner in the Castle is the 8th Maggie Hope mystery and is an excellent addition to the series. In a departure from her earlier novels, MacNeal utilizes Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None strategy of eliminating characters one by one while the remaining individuals race to determine who the murderer is. As the book opens, Maggie and various other SOE agents are being held prisoner on the Isle of Scarra off the coast of Scotland; each agent has some knowledge or issue that the SOE believes impacts that person’s ability to serve during the war so they are all sentenced to spend the rest of World War 2 on this remote island.

MacNeal provides fabulous detail regarding both the Scottish setting and the garish castle in which they are all trapped. The Scottish legends are fascinating and add depth and character to the tale. The use of Christie’s plot device was clever and effective for this tale. I was so curious to see who would die next which made reading the book a ton of fun. I always enjoy Maggie Hope’s adventures, and The Prisoner in the Castle is a highly enjoyable read.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to read an advance copy of the latest Maggie Hope book, The Prisoner in the Castle, since I have loved the series. In addition to being a suspenseful novel, I learned a lot of interesting things about events that took place in WWII that I hadn't previously known about, despite reading many other books on the subject. As always, the book was well-written and had a great cast of characters. I think MacNeal's plots are improving as the series continues. I highly recommend the book and series. It would particularly appeal to fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Charles Todd.

The adventures of Maggie Hope continue on in this story of her being sent to an island off the coast of Scotland because she knows something that would be dangerous in the wrong hands. There are other "prisoners" like Maggie at this island retreat where no communication with the outside world is allowed. Then, people start turning up dead. Maggie and the others must find out who is killing them before they are all done for.

Great characters and setting. Books don't get much better than this!

Maggie Hope is one of the best written, most intelligent heroines to come along in a book series in a long time. The series of events in The Prisoner in the Castle reminded me of an Agatha Christie mystery in some ways, which is fitting for the time period. Susan Elia MacNeal tries to get every detail right, and the research she does for her novels shows. Highly recommended!

PRISONER IN THE CASTLE by SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL
When Pandora opened that box, releasing all the troubles that plague mankind, one thing was left: hope, which helps us to endure despite all the rest . . . such is Maggie Hope. Maggie’s courage, resourcefulness, honor, and loyalty, as well as her excellent training, make her never, ever, give up. There are so many confusing twists in this maze of a story, so many “I didn’t see that coming” moments, that I could barely put it down. MacNeal’s attention to detail and historical accuracy make the narrative ring true, and the lessons and questions of morality and human nature encourage pondering even after the last page is turned. I love when good can come from bad.
Lessons, themes, and imagery for further thought:
“Don’t sit under the apple tree,” Garden of Eden, Eve and the apple, Newton’s first law of motion.
Legend of the Blue Men and memorizing poetry. “Scarra. Like scar. Or scare.” “rain drumming like skeleton fingers” . . . clocks all stopped
Simplicity of math compared to human vagaries . . . “Most Dangerous Game”
“As Dostoyevsky said, ‘People speak sometimes about the animal cruelty of man, but that’s terribly insulting and offensive to animals.”
“We need to teach alternatives to violence. That we’re not beasts, and don’t have to act like them.”
“Does the end ever justify the tainted means?”
and my dad’s favorite saying, “time spent fishing is not deducted from the span of your life.”
* Also, care in editing deserves mention. I read a pre-release “uncorrected” copy, and even so I couldn’t find errors. Well done!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in return for my review. Here is that review:

I have grown to really love Maggie Hope!! She is an American, born in England, who was orphaned at a young age and raised by a single aunt in and around Boston. She inherited a house in London from a previously-unknown grandmother and travelled to England to see the house and possibly sell it. While there, war broke out and she was drawn into it, first working for Winston Churchill as a secretary, and then being recruited as an agent for SOE, an undercover government group working to win the war. Along the way, she has found out a lot about her life, including the fact that she was not, in fact, orphaned at all, but was sent to America to get her away from her mathematician American father and German spy mother. She also has a half-sister living in Germany!!

Now, she is being held prisoner in a remote island off the coast of Scotland because she knows a secret that the Allies cannot afford to have discovered.

There are several former British spies also on the island, exiled for various reasons that keep them from being viable to use in the field. Slowly, one by one, they are being murdered.

This book is a little different from the others in the series, as Maggie is mostly on her own, without her band of friends and co-workers who have become familiar in the course of these books.

Good read, which is based on a true incident during the war, about which I am sure most of us were previously unaware.