Review: Spies

Suburban wartime London. Keith and Stephen and two young residents of a new subdivision. For different reasons, each is shunned by other children and they spend all their free time together. Keith is an impractical visionary, a planner on a grand scale of fantastic schemes for tunnels, hiding places, secret codes and message services. Stephen follows in his wake - timidly deferring to his friend and rationalizing to himself the limits of their achievments.

Their two families differ as well - Keith's home life micromanaged by an obsessive compulsive father who seems to have no gainful employment. Stephen's home is a more familiar model, with a working father and a calmly domestic mother.

In a brief moment of boredom seeking a new challenge for his fantastic flights of fancy, Keith announces that his mother is a spy for Hitler's Germany. He devises elaborate plans to follow her on her errands, and record her movements in a "logbook." Keith's plans don't include any further steps to notify anyone in authority, and Stephen is plunged into a storm of fear, indecision and confusion.

And we soon learn that Keith's mother does have something important to keep secret. The boys' humorous and bumbling efforts to follow her, record her movements and identify her motives as a spy bring tragic repercussions for her, for Stephen and other residents of the small subdivision.

Stephen at age 11 or 12, of course, is a predictably inept detective. Yet little by little the reader can perceive important facts and on at least one occasion Stephen's actions save the "damsel in distress."

Although not crime fiction per se, this novel is extraordinarily suspenseful and kept me thoroughly engrossed. Time spent in reading it a second time brought out more and more elements of the tension between the characters and in the setting. All the classic themes are here - love, betrayal, death, cowardice, mistaken identity, deception, abusive control, capped by Stephen's painful loss of innocence. A concluding unexpected twist in the story is a very nice "gotcha!"

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM

Book Review: Spies