Restless - Couverture souple

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0679314792 ISBN 13 : 9780679314790

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Sally Gilmartin can’t escape her past.

Living in the idyllic English countryside in 1976, Sally is haunted by her experiences during the Second World War. She also suspects someone is trying to kill her. With mounting fear, Sally confides with her daughter Ruth; a woman struggling with her own past. Sally drops a bombshell. She is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré recruited as a spy by the British prior to the Second World War. For the past thirty years, Eva has led a second life hiding from the ghosts of her past.

Eva reveals her secret to her daughter through a series of written chapters for a planned book. As Ruth delves into her mother’s writing, she learns the shocking truth. Eva was recruited in Paris prior to the Second World War, following the death of her brother Kolia; also a British spy. Taught by an enigmatic spymaster named Lucas Romer, Eva learned the art of espionage and was made part of a unit specializing in media manipulation. Above all, she was taught ‘Rule Number One’ of spying: trust no one — a rule broken when she and Romer began a dangerous love affair. The affair had tragic consequences.

In 1941, Eva and Romer were assigned to the United States. They were given the task of manipulating the American media into motivating the public to support entry into the war on the Allied side. While in New York, Eva’s affair with Romer set in motion events that culminated in her betrayal and her flight from the British Secret Services. She found eventual refuge in a new life as Sally Gilmartin.

Thirty years later, Eva’s identity unravels with her confession to her daughter. Ruth struggles with the truth, and her own recent past fills her with self-doubt and insecurity. A failed relationship in Germany resulted in a son and an eventual return to England. Her mother’s confession leads Ruth to the realization that her mother is entangling her in one final mission — a showdown with Eva’s past betrayer.

Restless twists and turns through the double life of one remarkable woman. Through Eva’s life, William Boyd asks the intriguing question — How well do we truly know someone?

From the Hardcover edition.

Revue de presse

“Boyd has written a crackling spy thriller, but more than that, he has evoked the atmosphere of wartime espionage: the clubby, grubby moral accommodations, the paranoia, the tense sexuality.”
–The New York Times

“Restless is hard to put down. It’s entertaining, thought-provoking and educational.”
–Edmonton Journal

“William Boyd has cleverly drawn from a rather obscure bit of espionage lore to craft a tale about how unknowable we really are to one another–even to those with whom we are seemingly most intimate.”
–The Gazette (Montreal)

“Restless is a brilliant story that sends the reader caroming between the 1940s . . . and the 1970s. . . . The book’s accurate history, intricate plot, complex characters and occasionally elegant diction make Restless not only a story with appeal for both sexes but also a potentially cinematic one.”
–The Vancouver Sun

“A clever and touching dance through the ghostly, illusion-strewn world of invented identities.”
–National Post
Praise for William Boyd:

“There’s hardly a writer around whose work offers more pleasure and satisfaction.”
–The Washington Post

“A gutsy writer . . . William Boyd is good company to keep.”
–Time

“Mr. Boyd seems singularly blessed with both an innate love of storytelling and the talent to render those stories in swift, confident prose.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A remarkably elastic, eclectic work. . . . Boyd has never been afraid to stretch himself, either thematically or stylistically.”
–The Globe and Mail

“One of the most skilful and appealing writers at work today.”
–The Atlantic Monthly

“Boyd has an exceptional ability to tell a really compelling story, in dense imaginative detail, about characters with complex, and convincing, emotional lives.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

Détails de l'édition

• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0679314792
• ISBN 13: 9780679314790
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 336
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible