Ruth Gilmartin, single mother, postgraduate student and teacher of English as a second language (no, that’s not why I chose this one), living in Oxford in 1976 is shocked to discover that her fesity 65 year old mother is not, as she has always believed, Sally Gilmartin, but in fact Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian emigré who was recruited to work as a spy for the British government in the years leading up to and during WWII. Her increasingly exciting story is interspersed with Ruth’s life in Oxford; more mundane perhaps, but by no means dull for all that.
This is William Boyd’s ninth novel. He has always enjoyed playing with different genres, and I have always enjoyed his straightforward, unpretentious storytelling. This is an intelligent thriller and a rollicking good read, pacy and hard to put down. I’m glad I didn’t have to; that’s one of the joys of reading on holiday, to have the leisure to read straight through a book at a single sitting.
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