Andrea Aspinall, a  gifted young mathematician is recruited away from academia by the British intelligence service in 1944 to help them track Germany’s efforts to create a nuclear weapon.  Convinced that her mathematical skills will enable them to untangle German atomic strategies they send her to Lisbon with a new identity to spy on the Germans who are acting suspiciously.  Once there she meets Karl Voss, a military attache’ to the German Legation and although they are on opposite sides and have different directives and orders they must follow, they fall in love. For a brief moment time stands still and Andrea and Karl are able to hold the war at bay but their idyll is short lived and when Andrea begins to uncover a massive conspiracy, tragedy ensues and she is hastily sent back to England.  In the years after that traumatic episode Andrea tries to find meaning by getting being involved in various causes but her past comes to back to haunt her and eventually she returns to British intelligence once again to help them find a mole who may be even more dangerous than Philby.

Spanning from WWII to the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Wilson has captured the Cold War  from its inception through to glasnost and the fall of the USSR. Alongside that historical framework he relates the personal cost of being a spy. Wilson is spare with his prose but is still able to draw fully realized characters. Andrea’s growth and development from a naive and uncomplicated twenty something to a mature woman in her 60’s is quite realistic and believable. Wilson, who is known for his award winning book A Small Death in Lisbon and other books continues to engage his readers, even while asking important and existential questions.

Brenda’s Rating: **** (4 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Marian. Sharon and Ken

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.