Massawa
Book 1 of the Vichy Conspiracy
Pam Weber
She Writes Press
June 2026
Massawa by Pam Weber is a tale of espionage, love, and illusion with a strong female protagonist, Kit Thomas. Instead of the well-known European battlefields, the story transports readers to Eritrea and the Red Sea, bringing this to the forefront. A plot by Nazi sympathizers threatens Allied operations in North Africa. Little was known about the espionage narrative that detailed Eritrea’s strategic role.
In 1942, a novice female American spy, Kit Thomas, is sent to northeastern Africa to investigate the disappearance of millions of military dollars. Instead of partnering with her young OSS boss, Jake Morgan, her partner will be MI6 Agent Mark Williams. Nazi sympathizers, Vichy cell members, members of the resistance movement, unskilled Eritreans and skilled Italian POW laborers as well as military and civilian members of the Allied forces are all an integral part of the little-known story.
In Massawa, Kit and Mark discover a conspiracy by Nazi sympathizers, known as the Vichy, to shut down the only Allied naval base on the Red Sea, an essential resource in stopping the Nazi invasion of North Africa.
The partnership between Kit and Mark adds the right amount of tension without overshadowing the central mystery. Their growing trust, is mixed with suspicion and subtle romantic chemistry. Their relationship has undeniable chemistry, but also distrust and conflicting agendas.
This is a riveting thriller that readers will be disappointed in having to wait a few years for its sequel. There are espionage, danger, political intrigue, and adventure with a blend of fiction and fact that makes for a very interesting story.
Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?
Pam Weber: I had just finished my last series, and I was having lunch with my brother, who is an amateur historian, except there’s nothing amateurish about him. He said, ‘You really need to tell the story about the miracle of Massawa. The more he talked, I knew immediately that was my next story and that it was the title of the book. So, what I wanted to do was capture the miracle at Massawa, but do it through the eyes of a strong female protagonist, a newly minted OSS agent with her smartness, her expertise, and her naivete.
EC: Will this be a series?
PW: Yes, this was the first in the series. The vehicle that I’m using for the story are the early days of the OSS, which, was the precursor to the CIA. And the utilization of women. The first director of the OSS was a guy named Bill Donovan, and Billy Donovan was a brilliant man, but he was also a notorious womanizer. But in all of that, he also recognized that women were the best, most natural to find men’s secrets. So, he hired women by the thousands, and sent them all over the globe, as part of the OSS, primarily because in most countries, women were not suspected, even though women have kind of been spies for their homelands for centuries. He had an organized effort of women to be intense intelligence gatherers all over the world. And Bill Donovan started that.
EC: Was it true what you wrote in the book about the British not liking the Americans?
PW: It was very shocking to me to find out, and it wasn’t all grit, but one of the things that I found out, as I did the research, and I spent time at the National Archives. Captain Edward Elsberg wrote, ‘There were isolated events where antagonistic Brits, either thought that we had come to the party too late, and that they could win the war by themselves, or that they simply didn’t need our help.’ There was also the idea of a global power shift, because at the time, England was the most powerful country on the globe. When the U.S. came in, that shifted. The power in the West shifted to the United States, and a lot of people recognized that. So, there was a line of antagonism among some Brits, where it showed up in Massawa.
EC: What was the importance of Massawa?
PW: The Brits invaded Eritrea, and, this is all in the book, recaptured Massawa. Salvage experts basically said that the base could not be salvaged. The Italians, when they had retreated from the British invasion destroyed the base. They destroyed everything on land, they found, and had 40 ships across the mouth of the harbor, so none of the Allied ships could get in. But Churchill needed the base because they were trying to keep Rommel to the north, in North Africa, from capturing the Suez Canal, and the rich oil fields of the Middle East. Churchill knew he needed a base to be able to service the ships that needed to support that campaign. So, he sent his experts, but his experts said, ‘Hey, there’s no way to salvage this thing.’ So, what Churchill did was he called Roosevelt and said, ‘Do you have a salvage expert that you can send to Massawa to see whether they can salvage the space or not?’
EC: Was Captain Ellsberg a hero?
PW: Captain Edward Ellsberg had recently retired before the war from the Navy as a salvage officer. He came back out of retirement, volunteered to go to Massawa. He spent six days there, and then sent a message to Churchill and Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, through the appropriate channels. That, yes, Massawa could, indeed, be saved. This is where the miracle comes in. He had only had a handful of allied help. He had a couple of Americans, several Brits, but he was able to salvage that base in 6 weeks using that handful of men and 6,000 Eritreans. And that’s where the miracle comes in. And one of the neat things about Ellsberg’s book was he talked about the frustration of having to use couriers because they couldn’t rely on the telephone service and the telephone service was all British cable and wireless. I kind of built that antagonism into the story using British cable and wireless.
EC: Did the weather play a role?
PW: In the mountains, it is beautiful and cool. It’s also known as the little Italy, because the Italians had come in 70 years earlier, and rebuilt the capital to mirror Rome. In fact, they called it Little Rome. Two hours south and east, you get to the coast, and to get there, you have an incredibly dangerous drive out of these tortuous mountains, across an incredibly hot desert to Massawa, which is known as the hottest place on Earth. So, the climate played a huge role. The men were battling 120-degree heat.They’re talking about having to take salt tablets and gallons of water every hour just to be able to maintain function. The climate plays a huge role, not only in reality, in the story.
EC: How would you describe the OSS officer Jake?
PW: Jake was analytical, calm, humorous, an observer, and a no nonsense kind of guy. He was the mover and the shaker. He kept his cards close to the chest.
EC: What about the MI6 agent Mark?
PW: Kind of off balance, manipulative. Likes to play games, confident, lonely. He lost his wife and brothers, so he has a facade. He’s not the tough guy so he tries to come across of as the uncaring guy. He’s a man of secrets. Mark is coming in knowing that he’s got this novice female OSS agent, from a novice organization. So, he comes in with a little bit of skepticism as it is. He has a e halittle bit of ego because he’s an experienced agent. Part of the dynamics of the story is how Mark and Kit work out their relationship, both on the professional level, to get the job done, and then on a personal level as well.
EC: What about the recruited OSS agent, Kit?
PW: She was sent to Massawa to trace the money. Mark and the Brits are the ones who came in and said, ‘You know, we think this was bigger than just stolen money. We think there is a Vichy conspiracy with that money being diverted to help Rommel to the north.’ I would describe Kit as detailed, impulsive, intuitive, empathetic, and inexperienced. I think the first adjective to describe her is analytical. Kit was recruited to the OSS from the War Department, where she was working as an analyst. She’s the one that’s thinking six levels down about what’s going on. I would say analytical at the top, along with naïveté.
EC: What is the relationship between Kit, Mark, and Jake?
PW: It was a natural thing to build in a little bit of romantic tension there. Kit has been in love with Jake since she came to the OSS. She thinks his feelings are reciprocated, but because he keeps everything so close to the chest, and he’s technically her boss, he’s never declared anything. And then here comes Mark, and over time, Mark obviously becomes invested and interested in Kit on a personal level.
EC: Next book?
PW: I don’t have a title yet, but it is a sequel to Massawa. Kit and Mark uncover this conspiracy in Massawa, and realize that the conspiracy is a lot bigger than they thought. The second book’s going to be on the Mediterranean coast, the North African Mediterranean coast in Algiers. But it’s going to be a continuation. It usually takes me a couple years, at least a year, 18 months to write. So, we’re looking at least two years.
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