Spies: A Novel (Recent Picador Highlights)

The National Bestseller. The sudden trace of a disturbing forgotten aroma compels Stephen Wheatley to return to the site of a dimly remembered but troubling childhood summer in wartime London. As he pieces together his scattered memories we are brought back to a quiet suburban street where two boys--Keith and his sidekick Stephen--are engaged in their own version of the war effort: spying on the neighbors recording their movements and ferreting out their secrets. But when Keith utters six shocking words the boys game of espionage takes a sinister and unintended turn transforming a wifes simple errands and the ordinary rituals of family life into the elements of adult catastrophe.. Childhood and innocence secrecy lies and repressed violence are all gently laid bare as once again Michael Frayn powerfully demonstrates that what appears to be happening in front of our eyes often turns out to be something we cannot see at all.