Spies: A Novel

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Summary: Spies
Review: This is one of the worst World War II stories that I have every read. It is incoherent and makes little sense. It was totally a waste of money.

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Summary: Frayn Kids Us
Review: We all pass through a stage in life - maybe 8 or 9 years old - in which we observe the world of adults but comprehend what we observe as children. This is the point of view that the middle-aged narrator Stephen Wheatley tries to recapture, as he tells the story of his difficult friendship with the boy Keith, as well as his relationship with Keith's lovely but compromised mother. Eventually, this battered woman asks Stephen to undertake a mission he understands only as a child, and it leads to his first experience of genuine evil in the world. Altogether, this is an absorbing story-very clean and straightforward, despite Stephen's childish miscomprehension. There are even gentle moments of Frayn wit, although not the hilarity of "Headlong" or "Noises Off". My prediction: Soon to be a good small movie at a theater near you.

Rating:
Summary: Poignant Journey
Review: What a great read this is!
The author has a true understanding of the transition from boyhood to adult emotions with all the hopes, fears and tribulations that go with it. Add to this a particular empathy with wartime suburban England and you have a classic of suspense, emotion in a book where Mr. Frayn actually makes you CARE about what happens to the lead character.
I loved it so much that I did something I never do and sent a copy to my Mum in England who was a girl in rural England during WW2. (She spoils me by leaving me Capt. Correli's Mandolin).

Rating:
Summary: 'Spies' - an intriguing tale
Review: What is it about these British authors that they can write about the past and their own childhoods in such a mature and adult way? Recently, we saw it in Booker nominee Ian McEwan's 'Atonement', then Penelope Lively with 'A House Unlocked", and now Frayn's 'Spies'. This is a story about how the protagonist saw a particular event during his pre-teen childhood. Puzzling, mysterious, and inexplicable. Then it all comes together in the last chapter when as a middle-aged man he goes back home and digs up his memories. That the pen that produced 'Headlong', and 'Copenhagen' can also produce such a delicious and haunting tale is even more wonderful.