Talking to Strange Men

A clerk who believes he has decoded the messages of an actual spy ring, instead of a schoolboys' complex game, plans to use the network to find the man who has stolen away his wife

YA Another compelling novel of psychological suspense from Rendell. The characters, a group of teenage boys playing espionage games and a lonely man facing his wife's desertion, are introduced through a first-person narrative which at first barely allows readers to understand how they relate to each other. Slowly the characters' lives become intertwined through the discovery of secret messages and unsolved codes. The suspense builds as readers realize that the misconceptions that each character holds can lead to disaster and that the teenage espionage games actually deal with a man's life. A wonderful novel that will intrigue young adult readers. Susan Penny, Houston Public Library
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ian and Mungo Cameron, Charles Mabledene, and Graham O'Neill are pecocious London schoolboys who enjoy a sophisticated game of devising, exchanging, and translating coded messages. Conventionally middle-class John Creevey becomes obsessed with intercepting and deciphering these messages even as he plots revenge on his estranged wife, Jennifer, and her lover, Peter Moran, an intellectual ne'er-do-well pederast. An intriguing subplot deals with the long-unsolved murder of John's sister, Cherry. Prolific novelist Rendell has brilliantly interwoven these compelling strands into one masterful tale of suspense. Ronald L. Coombs, SUNY Downstate Medical Ctr. Lib., Brooklyn, N.Y.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.