Maya is 38, reeling from a marriage breakdown, and in need of a new start. But the new start is not what she expects when she becomes embroiled in the world of crime and spies and must flee for her life.

That is the premise of The Hiding Season, the latest novel by Farnham author Ava Glass, the UK’s biggest-selling female spy writer.

Maya, the novel’s protagonist, is not a spy but Ava wanted to explore what happens if an ordinary person gets caught up in the world of spies. She also examines what happens when someone faces a major life-change.

Ava said: “I think a lot of people can relate to that punch we get, often in our 30s, when maybe a relationship breaks down or a career isn’t working out. Do we let it defeat us or do we get stronger?”

Maya starts off as a fragile character who must trust an FBI agent whom she does not know. “She has to believe him,” said Ava. “Her entire world has been turned upside down.”

In many ways the book is about trust and how we know the truth and Ava’s background is fertile soil for this. She was a communications specialist in the Home Office working with MI5 and MI6 and met lots of spies – or did she?

“No-one said ‘Hello, my name’s Bob, I’m a spy. If anything, they said ‘My name’s Bob and I work upstairs’. Usually, the person’s name wasn’t actually Bob or whoever. And even spies don’t always know who other spies are.”

Spies are, Ava explained, “normal-looking. They blend into any crowd.” This is a far cry from the James Bond stereotype and, in fact, many spies are women. “There were women spies in World War II and then they were basically dropped for 30 years. It started to change in the 1980s when Stella Rimmington began to rise up the ranks and now there are loads of them.”

Ava is careful what she writes. “I try to capture what that world feels like and the basics of what happens without giving away anything. I worry all the time about giving something away but I have friends who still work in this area and they are happy with what I write.”

Ava also worked with the FBI as a crime reporter in her native USA. This gave her close-up experience of the real effects of crime. “In the US, reporters are there in the middle of the crime scene. The first dead body I saw was on my first day as a reporter when I was 22.” The young Ava was traumatised by this and drew on this in The Hiding Season. “We are hard-wired to be revolted by a corpse and Maya reacts as humans actually do in that situation.”

The corpse is just one of Maya’s problems in this page-turner of a novel. Out on March 26, The Hiding Season can be ordered from bookshops and online. Ava will be talking at Goldfinch Books in Alton on March 26, from 6pm.