Restless.

Michael Payne is head of the reasearch and publications program,
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This exploration of the murky world of pre-Second World War diplomacy and politics begins in the present with an intriguing situation. Ruth Gilmartin is personally adrift. She is a single mother with an unfinished thesis and a less-than-challenging job teaching conversational English to an odd cast of characters. Ruth’s mother believes that she is being watched and that her life may be in danger, so she introduces a new complication into her daughter’s life. She gives Ruth a manuscript entitled The Story of Eva Delectorskaya. She then reveals that she is the aforementioned Eva and that her personal history is a lot more complicated than she had ever let her daughter know.

Ruth begins to read her mother’s story, and is led into the darker side of pre-war French politics and her mother’s recruitment as a spy by the mysterious Lucas Romer. The memoir reveals that, as Eva is pulled deeper and deeper into the world of espionage, she begins a relationship with Romer without fully understanding the implications of his schemes. These take Romer and Eva to New York in the months leading up to America’s entry into the war. Eva is working to try to shape public opinion in support of the Allies, but Romer’s motives may be a lot more complex. When the situation goes horribly awry, Eva has to disappear, using an assumed name to reach safety in Canada. She then makes her way back to Britain, into marriage, and out of the intelligence game. Still, spies can never truly leave the trade, and years later her memoirs reopen old secrets from the war.

Boyd cleverly mixes actual historical events into his fictional narrative. The denouement, which relies on several plot twists and revelations, does an excellent job of tying the stories of Ruth and her mother together. This is a very solid spy novel with a plausible historical background and a satisfyingly ambiguous conclusion.