Helen Dunmore (http://www.helendunmore.com/) is a prolific and well loved writer across a range of categories – novels, young adult fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, short stories and essays. Her latest novel, Exposure (2016), is ideal as a winter read. With the world closed down outside, let Dunmore and your imagination transport you fully to a different world.
That world is London in November 1960. The Cold War is at its height. Spy fever fills the newspapers, and the political establishment knows how and where to bury its secrets. When a highly sensitive file goes missing, Government employee Simon Callington is accused of passing information to the Soviets, and arrested. His wife, Lily, suspects that his imprisonment is part of a cover-up, and that more powerful men than Simon will do anything to prevent their own downfall. She knows that she too is in danger, and must fight to protect her children. But what she does not realise is that Simon has hidden vital truths about his past, and may be found guilty of another crime that carries an even greater penalty. Simon is a soul divided by a forbidden love affair in his past and the devoted husband he presents in the present. This is spy fiction which is a lot closer to Graham Green and John Le Carre than to the glamorised roccoco adventures of James Bond. More about psychological conflict, inner turmoil and an exposure of the flawed nature of us all. As Immanual Kant observed -‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made’. The realisation, I trust, will not leave you feeling too exposed. Time enough in February, possibly, to reflect on these matters in the narrative of Dunmore’s new Cold War thriller.
Enquire at your local library or consult http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exposure-Helen-Dunmore/dp/0091953944/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454155211&sr=8-1&keywords=exposure+dunmore for full bibliographic detail.
400 pages in Hutchinson
First published 2016
ISBN 978-0091953942
Helen Dunmore