Spies

Michael Frayn

When one of the main characters in Michael Frayn's set-in-1940 novel announces early on "my mother is a German spy" you know you're in for an intriguing story at the very least. The speaker is the odious Keith and his audience, playmate and disciple is the ineffectual Stephen. The boys are wrong, of course. But Keith's mother is indeed living a secret life of quite another kind and their schoolboyish detective work eventually leads to disastrous revelations for all concerned.

The story is told in flashback by the adult Stephen. The representation of a child's eye view of the world as remembered by an adult is excellently done: The horror a child feels when he perceives for the first time the weakness and desperation of a familiar adult. The power one child can exercise over another. The way the rigidities of class and convention - even at their most untenable - are accepted without question by children and go utterly unanalyzed.

Other reviewers compare Spies with Ian McEwan's Atonement and, especially, L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between. Like Leo in The Go-Between Stephen endures, as a prelude to disaster, the kindness and condescension of a wealthier and superficially more exciting family.

I'd score it higher except that the plot twist is utterly guessable and the story itself feels strangely thin in spite of the intriguing setup.