- Hardcover: 480 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; First Edition edition (19 Feb 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0002326698
- ISBN-13: 978-0002326698
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 4.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,626,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
This tale of divided loyalties and a bitter war fought behind polite façades is Wilson's most ambitious and sprawling novel yet, set in the stupefying heat of Lisbon in 1944. We are vividly shown a city that echoes Bogart's Casablanca, where spies and informers make every conversation a minefield. The Germans have developed rocket technology, and are on the brink of atomic breakthrough. The allies are keen to stop the German secret weapon, and their operative is Andrea Aspinall, a young mathematician struggling to come to terms with the sophisticated world in which she finds herself. Andrea meets Karl Voss, a military attaché to the German legation, who is embittered and compromised by his part in the death the Reichsminister, and traumatised by the death of his beloved brother in Stalingrad. This ill-assorted couple attempts to forge a relationship in a world of treachery and death. After a terrifying climax, the novel moves to the paranoid world of Cold War Germany, and Andrea finds that she must make grim choices in a snowbound East Berlin.
Wilson tackles his epic canvas with the kind of assurance that is no surprise to his admirers, and at nearly 500 pages, this is truly a book of ambitious reach. But Wilson's speciality is, of course, characterisation, and both Andrea and Voss are painted with the utmost subtlety and intelligence. Andrea's development from naive young girl to the woman that war makes of her is very sharply handled. It must be said, though, that this may not be the best novel for those new to Wilson: after a mesmerising opening scene with Voss watching Hitler's madness infect those around him, the author undoubtedly takes his time to create his minutely detailed world, and the tautness of the early books is replaced by a more leisurely inclusiveness reminiscent of late le Carré. But those who allow themselves to fall under the author's Ancient Mariner-like spell will find this among his most rewarding and complex novels. --Barry Forshaw
Review
‘Displaying once again Wilson’s gifts for atmospheric depiction of place, this ambitious experiment is streets ahead of most other thrillers’ John Dugdale, Sunday Times
‘With Company of Strangers Wilson again shows himself to be one of our finest writers and a storyteller with few equals’ Jim Driver, Time Out
‘Immensely enjoyable and entertaining’ Allan Massie, Scotsman
‘Wilson employs a slightly out-of-focus prose style that eminently suits his tale of intrigue and double-dealing … watch his star, for it is surely in the ascendent’ Vincent Banville, Irish Times
‘Wilson’s tale is a plotter’s delight: spanning several decades and cleverly reworking past narratives in the light of new evidence, he creates an intriguing moral maze for his heroine to negotiate – and a puzzle of metaphors to match (he’s a better stylist than du Maurier). Recommended’ Chris Petit, Guardian
‘A big, meaty novel of love and deceit … with this novel Wilson vaults to the front-rank of thriller writers’ Peter Guttridge, Observer
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Wilsons book is an example of the spy novel coming of age. No certainties or simple ideas of who is right or wrong. Everybody is in the right at some time in this story, if at the wrong time or in the wrong place. The reader is taken on a trip in both place and time. From the paranoid heat of neutral wartime Lisbon in the 40's to the similarly obsessed Berlin of the 70's. We are steeped in the atmosphere,with two wholly believable characters as our guides. Andrea Aspinall and Karl Voss are complicated,flawed and wholly believable human beings forced to carry out extraordinary acts in order survive. We see them age, the motes falling from their eyes as the work they are engaged in leaves them no illusions. The Nazi becomes a British agent, then a Stasi officer while doubling for the British.The British agent works for the Communists and the British. They achieve this while keeping one thing true, their love. Not without cost,they lose those closest to them, they choose betrayal as a positive act. In short they are grown ups not ciphers. Wilsons writing gets better and better, the sense of place is impeccable,the other characters vividly drawn with their own stories to tell. The ending is not an easy thing for either our lovers or the reader.
It is too easy to compare one author with another but if you like Le Carre orAlan Furst you will love this book. You will come away from it not just having enjoyed excellent plotting and characterisation but perhaps an unintended history lesson as well.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having greatly enjoyed the author's Africa novels and "A Small Death in Lisbon", I was eagerly anticipating this, his latest book. While it attempts the grand sweep through time and geography as in "Lisbon", this time it just doesn't quite work. Perhaps the episodic fragments are just too fragmented, the coincidences just too forced and the characters not quite believeable.
This is not to deny a strong sense of place both in Lisbon and in East Germany. However the byzantine twists in the final third of the book simply left this reader thinking "so what?"
But I strongly recommend "A Small Death in Lisbon" to anyone.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A Small Death In Lisbon was one of my favourite books last summer, a really excellent read. I also liked one of Wilson's earlier African efforts, so I shelled out for his latest hardback hoping for more of the same. The setting is similar to 'Lisbon', WWII Portugal, but the story is a disaster. It just never gets going. Back to the drawing board I'm afraid.
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