Rating: 
Summary: Mathematicians Need Not Get Too Excited
Review: The WWII heroine of this story is a young mathematician who is recruited to spy on the Germans. This is, however, not a story about number nerds. Andrea Aspinall signs on as an agent to spy against the Germans in Lisbon with employment at Shell Oil Company (product placement?) as her cover. The story moves on swiftly with various dead bodies soon scattered around the beautiful Portuguese landscape. Much smoking and drinking is undertaken to pass the time, and Andrea finds romance with a member of the, er, opposition. It's a dangerous liaison, though, and the suspense keeps building. Only twenty days have passed since Andrea landed in Lisbon, and the book is half finished. Surprise. At page 280 the Lisbon adventure ends, and we are back in London years later. Mystified, the reader wonders what is going to happen next. The story meanders along until finally we see that Andrea will spy once again. But this time there is a strange twist to the story. More bodies; more intrigue; more smoking. It's a well written book that is several literary steps above the usual cardboard character novels turned out by various other genre writers appearing on the best seller lists.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Literate Espionage Thriller
Review: This book was a natural to win me over. First, it talks about the world of espionage in a fairly realistic way and puts some characterization to the players involved. Second, the writing here is really strong. The scenes come alive for me. The description of the burning piano in the first of the book really grabbed me and made me want to read more.
This book will not appeal so much to thriller fans as it will to those readers who value the skill of the story-teller and his ability to "hook" the reader into the story line.
I've got to read some more stuff by Robert Wilson!
Rating:
Summary: Highly Literate Espionage Thriller
Review: This book was a natural to win me over. First, it talks about the world of espionage in a fairly realistic way and puts some characterization to the players involved. Second, the writing here is really strong. The scenes come alive for me. The description of the burning piano in the first of the book really grabbed me and made me want to read more.
This book will not appeal so much to thriller fans as it will to those readers who value the skill of the story-teller and his ability to "hook" the reader into the story line.
I've got to read some more stuff by Robert Wilson!
Rating:
Summary: Deceit and Betrayal
Review: This is an excellent read, the kind of book which is difficult to put aside. Having stayed up some very late nights, I can attest to that. The intermittent revelations of deceit, betrayal and intrigue really kept my interest up. But I did have some problems which explain my four star rating. The plot was forced in several areas. Andrea is supposed to be a highly intelligent math whizz, but shortly after arriving in Lisbon she falls in love with her German counterpart, obviously a stupid move! Hard to believe particularly when bombs are falling in the U.K. which she has just left. Also, her relationship with her Cambridge professor doesn't appear to be very rational or meaningful to the plot. Is that a point the author is making? I agree with one of the other reviewers, that the story continues to the last page, not like more well-known espionage authors whose stories often end in the middle. The Lisbon setting was interesting to me having spent some time in Estoril and is authentic. The ending is surprising and very believable in this spy world of what you see is not what you get. That underlying morality tale seemed to me the important and interesting lesson of the book. I am trying to decide if I prefer Alan Furst or Phillip Kerr, with darker outlooks, to this author. Still, I highly recommend this novel, and plan to read more of his work.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring spy thriller
Review: This novel probably wins my prize as the most boring "thriller" I've ever read. I waded through the whole thing just to see if it would ever improve. It didn't, but I persevered right through to the disappointing ending. The main problem is that I didn't care about any of the characters. The female lead, a math genius turned spy, just drifts through life letting others manipulate her. The book had great potential but never grabbed me. Robert Wilson may be a fine writer, but he doesn't keep the pages turning for me the way Jack Higgins and the late Robert Ludlum do.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, both in plot and in structure.
Review: Wilson's unusual ability to create fascinating and fully drawn characters within the confines of a plot-driven espionage novel make this novel particularly enjoyable. Andrea/Anne is a character who grows from a protected and naive twenty-year-old to a pragmatic spy and, later in life, to a committed political activist. Karl Voss and his family are "good Germans," disillusioned by Hitler's callous disregard for his soldiers and by his monomaniacal plans, and they believe they can serve their country best by betraying its Nazi leadership. As Karl makes contact with British intelligence and with Anne and other agents based in Lisbon, the reader watches their characters unfold as they respond to the intricacies of spy/counterspy maneuvering. More than half the novel consists of this Anne/Karl story during the waning days of World War II, a tightly drawn, tension-filled, and often genuinely moving interplay of characters and the forces which motivate them. Part II further develops the story of Anne in 1968 in London, with the short Part III taking place in 1989. These latter two sections, while intriguing and consistent with the author's themes, seemed to me to lack the immediacy and excitement of the earlier Lisbon section. The broad scope and intensity of World War II are sacrificed in favor of subtler, more abstract maneuvering during the Cold War in Part II. The motivations of the characters are fuzzier, the consequences of their behavior seem less cataclysmic, and what action there is feels a bit arthritic. The concluding Part III narrows the scope even more to a handful of characters in a country cottage setting, and while it is dramatic and probably realistic, I found it disappointing--as if the author himself were performing some double agent trickery on me, the reader. Like the best of the espionage novels, this one has plenty of action and excitement to keep the reader occupied, especially in Part I, but the book also seems to straddle a line. Because the author is also intent on developing character over an extended period of time, an unusual objective in a thriller, he also needs to include the less exciting Parts II and III which show the characters in their maturity and bring the story and themes full circle, an unusual structure and a fascinating attempt by the author to "have it all."
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