Description:
Robert Wilson, whose award-winning A Small Death in Lisbon broke him out as an international thriller writer in the Ambler, le Carré, and Furst tradition, scores with this exceptionally well-plotted novel of wartime intrigue in England and Portugal. Andrea Aspinall, a brilliant young British mathematician, is recruited by the British Secret Service and put through a rush course in spycraft before being sent to Lisbon, where she quickly falls in love with a disenchanted German agent and, in less than two weeks, manages to lose her virginity, unmask a conspiracy, and interrupt Germany's plan to build the first atomic bomb. The action covers a long time span--from the early years of Word War II to the era of glasnost, when Andrea, now an Oxford mathematician long retired from spying, encounters the man she once loved and lost. Karl Voss has become an East German double agent who's bent on revealing the Russian mole in England's service. The narrative wanders a bit, but the strong, spare writing and deft characterization set this apart as one of the year's better international espionage novels, one that should introduce Wilson to a bigger audience. --Jane Adams
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