BELFAST — Left Bank Books, in downtown Belfast, invites the public to a free talk by New York Times best-selling author Tess Gerritsen on Thursday, March 20, at 6:30 p.m., to celebrate that week’s release of The Summer Guests, the second book in her espionage series.

In a pivot from the international locales of Bangkok and Rome in The Spy Coast, the first book in the series, The Summer Guests is entirely set in Midcoast Maine.

"In a picture postcard of a vacation community, Gerritsen has combined spy craft and intrigue into a well-plotted page-turner with endearing characters," said Left Bank, in a news release.

The Summer Guests brings back retired CIA operative Maggie Bird and her colleagues in the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. It also features local police chief Jo Thibodeau, with whom Maggie and her friends have an uneasy alliance. The action takes place in the fictional town of Purity where a member of a wealthy family with long ties to the town has gone missing. The Martini Club members, with Bird leading the way, can’t help themselves from becoming involved in solving the mystery.

Gerritsen has said that, of all her projects “this series feels the most personal to write because the story reflects my own feelings about growing older. I’m far more aware that the world considers older people, especially women, invisible. My heroine, Maggie Bird, is still sharp and capable, and it’s fun to see how she uses that invisibility to her advantage.”

Gerritsen made her New York Times bestseller debut with her first medical thriller, Harvest, in 1996. Today, her work is published in more than forty countries. Her series of police procedurals featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the TNT hit television series “Rizzoli & Isles.”

Reservations can be made by calling the bookshop (207.338.9009) or emailing: info@leftbankbookshop.com. Ample free parking is available in front of the shop and in an adjacent city lot.