The Accidental Spy — Neal Sanders

It's 1967 and 27-year-old Pan Am stewardess Susan Delaney's highest aspirations are working first class on transatlantic flights… and meeting Mr. Right. That is, until one July afternoon when Susan agrees to deliver an errant suitcase from New York to Miami Beach. She arrives just in time to find that its owner has jumped â€" or been thrown â€" off a hotel balcony. The suitcase Susan is carrying contains detailed plans for a computer on a chip, an invention of enormous military importance but one thought to be years away from reality. But whose plans are they? No one seems to know, but among the people who want those plans are the KGB, the CIA, an anti-Casto Cuban exile group, and the Mafia. Susan is recruited by Joe Klein, a handsome Israeli agent, who convinces her of the need to find the plans' rightful owner. They embark on a round-the-country odyssey aided by Sadie, a grandmotherly El Al air marshal whose knitting bag packs a lethal arsenal. There's one disturbing thing that we as readers know from the outset: that by the end of the story, someone will be murdered. And the nature of the murder is such that Susan has kept it secret until today. The Accidental Spy moves across a fascinating mid-20th-century landscape that will be familiar to viewers of Mad Men. Susan tells her story with an infectious sense of humor that will keep you reading â€" and laughing â€" well into the evening.