'If you were a sleeper, how long do you think it would take before you forgot who you really were? If you were living undercover for years and years. Which person would be you?' On a freezing January morning in 1961, eight-year-old Anna's mother disappears into the fog. A kiss that barely touches Anna's cheek, a rumble of exhaust and a blurred wave through an icy windscreen, and her mother is gone. Looking back, Anna will wish that she could have paid more attention to the facts of that day. The adult world shrouds the loss in silence, tidies the issue of death away along with the things that her mother left behind. And her memories will drift and settle like the fog that covers the car. That same morning a spy case breaks in the news - the case of the Krogers, apparently ordinary people who were not who they said they were; people who had disappeared in one place and reappeared in another with other identities, leading other lives. Obsessed by stories of the Cold War, and of the Second World War which is still a fresh and painful memory for the adults about them, Anna's brother Peter begins to construct a theory that their mother, a refugee from eastern Germany, was a spy working undercover and might even still be alive. As life returns to normal, Anna struggles to sort between fact and fantasy. Did her mother have a secret life? And how do you know who a person was once she is dead? The Spy Game is a beautifully wrought novel about loss, history, memory and imagination, and the way in which we shape these to construct our own identities. It is a painful and tender reminder of the importance of understanding the past and, in turn, the importance of letting go.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Georgina Harding is the author of the novel The Solitude of Thomas Cave and two works of non-fiction: Tranquebar and In Another Europe. She lives in London and the Stour Valley, Essex.
A British woman returns to the childhood loss of her German émigré mother in this moody, gloomy novel by the author of The Solitude of Thomas Cave. Anna is eight years old and living in London in 1961 when her mother dies in a car accident. As children, Anna and her brother, Peter, intuit something suspicious about their mother's death, and together they conclude that their mother must not be dead, and that she must be a Soviet spy. Peter, on holiday from boarding school, teaches Anna about cryptography, while Anna searches out irregularities in the behavior of her mother's former friends. As they spy on their neighbors, their paranoia grows out of hand. Interwoven throughout is a plot in the present day, when Anna, dissatisfied with her understanding of her mother's life and death, digs into her mother's past. Harding is a fine portraitist when it comes to sketching the children, their father and friends, but the shifts between present and past never fully integrate the suggestion of espionage into the otherwise effective story of children coping with loss. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 6.65
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Seller: AwesomeBooks, Wallingford, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The Spy Game This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. . Seller Inventory # 7719-9780747599029
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Bahamut Media, Reading, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780747599029
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: WYEMART LIMITED, HEREFORD, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # mon0000103603
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: Antiquariat Hecht, Leer, NDS, Germany
8°, OKart. (Taschenbuch); Condition: Wie neu. 320 S.; In englischer Sprache! Kopfschnitt lichtrandig gebräunt, sonst tadelloser Zustand, ladenfrisch, ungelesen. /h0012a ISBN: 9780747599029 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 382. Seller Inventory # 50621
Quantity: 1 available