- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; New Ed edition (4 July 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006496709
- ISBN-13: 978-0006496700
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,200,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
‘Appignanesi is a spirited storyteller… she has produced as lively a page-turner as one could hope for’
Daily Telegraph
Review
'Appignanesi is a spirited storyteller! she has produced as lively a page-turner as one could hope for' Daily Telegraph
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
This is not my usual kind of book but it was passed on to me as part of a mixed bag when I was going on holiday, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. The blend of romance, human interest and espionage was just about right for someone who is not an avid reader of the spy genre. It was also one of the few loosely "romantic" books I can imagine recommending to a male reader.
A message on an answerphone and a contact name on a memo lead Tessa to suspect that her scientist husband, Stephen, is having an affair. And why not, when her desire to have a baby has created such a huge rift between them? She decides to investigate and secretly follows him to Paris, where an American man takes a flattering interest in her. What she doesn't know is that for many years Stephen has acted as a courier for a network carrying scientific information across the Iron Curtain, run by Simone, an ageing and elegant French woman, who has secrets of her own.
The action shifts to Eastern Europe, where Tessa falls in love with an abandoned baby and finds herself in unimaginable danger from her new admirer, Simone attempts to sort out the fallout from her wartime past, and Stephen begins to suspect that his own scientific work has been stolen. Stephen's old friend Jan, himself going through a separation, raises some interesting questions about how a marriage can be kept alive. By the end of the story, many things have been resolved.
I really liked the style of this novel - neither twee and romantic nor off-puttingly terse and hard-bitten, it had a kind of clarity that I found very appropriate for a novel about academic thinkers. If Iris Murdoch, in her earlier and simpler style, had written a spy thriller, it might have read a bit like this. I look forward to reading more by this author!
I loved this author's The Dead of Winter, and though I knew this was an earlier book I was expecting a lot from it.
Though I could tell near the beginning there was a good story in there struggling to get out, the first third or so nearly made me give up. The main character was all I hated: whining, obsessed with wanting to be a mother, easily led by a handsome stranger, and just plain stupid.
I'm afraid she stayed stupid, in my view, but the other characters were excellent and the story really got off the ground when the whole lot of them reached Prague - it was exciting and as well told as TDOW.
I suppose a character like Tessa who can raise that much antipathy in this reader, at least, must be well drawn, if only negatively!
I have Sanctuary on my to be read pile, and I am looking forward to it, really.
Though I could tell near the beginning there was a good story in there struggling to get out, the first third or so nearly made me give up. The main character was all I hated: whining, obsessed with wanting to be a mother, easily led by a handsome stranger, and just plain stupid.
I'm afraid she stayed stupid, in my view, but the other characters were excellent and the story really got off the ground when the whole lot of them reached Prague - it was exciting and as well told as TDOW.
I suppose a character like Tessa who can raise that much antipathy in this reader, at least, must be well drawn, if only negatively!
I have Sanctuary on my to be read pile, and I am looking forward to it, really.
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