Restless: A Novel

Compelling story about a woman swept up into becoming a spy to help England succeed in WWII only to be betrayed by the head of the unit who was a double agent. Convincing and exciting story of her wit and intelligence in defeating a leader who underrated her intelligence because of her sex. Great read.

I think I purchased this kindle ebook for $3.99 or less and had never heard of this author. I was attracted by the book description, number of highly positive reader reviews, leading me to read a sample before making my purchase.I was surprised (and pleased) by the quality of the writing, the building suspense, the well-drawn characters and the careful description of the time and place in which it was set. I knew only a little about the role that novice and career British agents played in both Europe and, especially, in the U.S., as the British tried to get America into World War II. This was not a popular position in the U.S. at the time. Neither the American people nor the government wanted to be involved in a foreign war. England desperately wanted and needed America to be fighting in Europe (and north Africa) against the Germans. A large segment of the American population was pro-Germany and/or isolationist. British agents were secretly embedded in the U.S. to feed the American media stories purportedly demonstrating the German's secret, allegedly planned attacks on the U.S - in the U.S. - and in the Atlantic.The reader is drawn into the dangerous and high stakes game the British are playing, without leaving their fingerprints on the effort.At the same time, we see the relationship between a recently recruited and hurriedly trained female agent, her professional and personal relationship with the group's spy master, as well as with her fellow British agents. We follow her on some of her assignments. The scope of the British operation in the U.S. was bigger than anything I'd ever read about and the agents' fear of discovery was palpable. Europe needed the strength of U.S. assets and active involvement to win the war.The structure of the novel is alternating chapters from two perspectives: that of a mother - the newly recruited, female British agent in her role as a spy in the U.S. during the WWII, and in her present life, living quietly and anonymously in rural England, and the life of her daughter - a single mother with her son, a small child, living nearby in a small town nearby English countryside, as she supports herself by teaching English to non-English speaking business men. For most of the book, it is unclear why she is a major character in the story. She knows nothing about her mother's past, certainly nothing about her experience as a spy in WWII.The book held my attention and piqued my interest in why the daughter was a main character. It turns out she's a player in bringing about the resolution of the story. The timeline and structure of the book brings mother and daughter together for the denouement, in the present. And, this is where, there is the only flaw from my point of view: a revelation at the very end of the book, for which, I felt, the reader is unprepared and which doen't ring true or contribute to the story in and way that I could see. I was unprepared for it and it seemed awkward and forced to me . . . the only false note in a wonderfully structured and written novel. As I said, this was the ONLY flaw or quibble I had with this book.When I finished reading, I searched amazon for other books by this author (previously unknown to me) and found a slew of spy novels, dating back 2 decades or more, nearly all of which were book award and/or prize winners. No wonder the writing was so good! I'm crossing my fingers that some of those novels will show up in the "FREE" or "books for $3.99 or less" categories. (hint, hint!)

Dear Steven,Thanks for recommending Restless. I did find it compelling storytelling and will recommend it.Nevertheless, I ended up feeling annoyed with the author for a number of really pointless and avoidable flaws and literary pretensions. If I didn't like it so much, the flaws would not annoy me so.So I'll refrain from summarizing the good aspects of the book (which I'm sure you see) and get the ennui off my chest.The book has or course 2 parallel stories alternating by chapter: First of a daughter in the 1970's alternating with a story of her mother beginning in the 1939. The book begins with a male author (Boyd) telling the story of daughter in the first person. Her elderly mother hands her secret memoir (of her life as a spy) to the daughter at the end of the first chapter. The second chapter begins with the telling of the story in the memoir. Although the memoir is presumably written by the mother in the first person, the chapters telling her story are instead told by the Boyd in the third person. Why?The Daughter chapters all have titles presumably indicative of their content. (But they aren't: Often they instead refer to something mentioned only in the last paragraph of the chapter.) The Mother chapters all have the same unhelpful title: "The Story of Eva Delectorskaya".Although the switching back and forth in time at the end of each chapter goes smoothly enough, Boyd also insists on playing pointless time games within the chapters: Several chapters start in the middle and then track back to explain what happened since the end of the chapter 2 chapters ago.***SPOILER ALERT***Overall the Mother's story is the heart of the book. The Daughter's story does serve the important role of driving home the theme of how little we may know the people closest to us. But beyond that the daughter's story is littered with irrelevant subplots (her nasty room mates who might be terrorists, the student who might be an Iranian revolutionary who wants to marry her) which the reader expects might be relevant to the overall novel but turn out to be pointless and gratuitous distractions.What amazes about the mother is how careful and thorough she has been trained to be. She has kept herself hidden away and incognito for 30 years to avoid being tracked down and killed. But now she does something completely out of character: She wants to find her nemesis. She could do it herself. But no. For no conceivable reason, she involves her daughter in the hunt, using her real name, needlessly endangering the daughter's life and perhaps the life of her young son. There is no reason for this other than the author's need perhaps to somehow tie the two stories together at the end.Lastly, the villain also does something completely out of character: Does his devious mind try to find a way to eliminate his enemies (the mother, daughter, the history professor) as he has done successfully so many times before? No. He obligingly commits suicide. Huh?All fiction requires the reader to suspend disbelief. All fiction authors have to make thousands of choices from an infinite set of possibilities. Great authors tell their stories so smoothly that they appear to be true. The stories "have to" unfold the way they do because that's what "happened". The authors hide their arbitrary choices so skillfully that the story "rings true". But if they don't hide their choices well (or they shove them in my face to show me how clever they are), I waste too much time thinking: "Why is the author doing this??. Then I get annoyed.Barry Milliken

I stumbled across William Boyd a few years back after picking up "Waiting for sunrise" out of curiosity and then finding I was unable to book the book down. Since then, I have tended to snap up his novels quite regularly but I had delayed reading "Restless" having seen the TV adaption that was on the BBC a few years ago. Whilst this is perhaps considered Boyd's most exciting novel , I was really struck by the similarities with his recent re-working of James Bond, the terrific "Solo" which effectively out-trumps Fleming. Like "Solo", the main protagonist is thrown in to a situation where they are out of their depth and the ending similarly hints that matters are not quite fully resolved. "Restless" is similarly a novel about the murky world of espionage and centres around the machinations to disseminate false news stories which , it is hoped, with prompt the United States to join in the war against Nazi Germany.When you pick up a William Boyd book you know that it will be a struggle not to want to read one more chapter. In "Restless", what is an almost worn out genre is recast with an original spin with the British spies facing adversaries who may well be American, German or even Russian. It is quite interesting that some of the incidents mentioned in this novel are historically correct and the main plot does have hints at the Zimmermann telegram incident of 1917 where intercepted documents were used to coerce the Americans in to joining that conflict. I really like the war that historical fact is blended within the narrative and if the scenes that fast-forward to 1976 feel a bit under-explored, the book remains a page-turner. This story winds things on to the outbreak of World War Two, however, a focuses on a little appreciated period in time before Pearl Harbour where the American's vacillated between whether they would or would not enter the conflict. A proportion of the plot concerns the underhand machinations as to how a top secret British espionage organisation had plans to help them make their mind up. Having now read five of William Boyd's books, I think that this is probably the most compact one and the air of menace and suspicion that pervades the book is palpable from the beginning. It is a very quick read. That said, I would point newcomers to the conspiracy thriller "Ordinary thunderstorms" as a starting point for exploring this writing as I think the longer novels allow him to weave all sorts of complexities whereas this book centres around the exact reasons why Eva is given the tasks she is assigned. Typically of Boyd, the familiar is given a slight twist so that the incredible becomes an acceptable reality. "Restless" is an interesting an original take on a hackneyed oeuvre and far more enjoyable that Ian McEwan's "Sweet tooth" which also sought to invigorate the spy genre. Whilst Boyd is a master of ambiguity and has a propensity for characters who are unreliable story-tellers, I just felt that "Restless" was almost a dry run for the more satisfying "Solo" which reimagined Ian Fleming's James Bond struggling to cope with the changing world of the late 1960s. "Restless" shares the American setting and also features a changing geo-political situation yet "Solo" seems a better attempt at playing with the reader's pre-conceptions. Here, the pre-Pearl Harbour world is nicely explored yet the main protagonists aren't quite so interesting. Still, I would guarantee that this book is still in the un-put-down-able category and easily worth five stars.

This is one of those books that keep you reading on until it's finished, even through episodes where you can't quite fathom what's going on, and you think about going back a bit to see if you've picked up all the clues - but no, you can't stop until it's all over, and then everything is clear, so no need to go back. So why not 5 stars? Only because even the best male writer (so far as I've yet found) can't really write a female point of view, it always feels as if this is a boy telling you what's happening. There are good biological reasons why this should be so - a female person, even in action-packed circumstances, remains aware of a lot of detail that a male doesn't need to think about, and also tends to see more colours, and even perhaps differentiates tones of voice more acutely. I expect that when female writers try to represent a male point of view they also get it a bit wrong. And of course perhaps it doesn't matter: for it's a great complicated story, unputdownable.

This feels like a proper grown-up novel. I enjoyed the easy elegance of the writing style and the careful drawing of the main characters.I have no knowledge of the various strands of espionage that went on before, during and after the second world war, but this British/US/Russian entanglement seems believable and created a fascinating story.Feasible or not, it was an excellent read. At one point, about three-quarters of the way through the book, I said out loud “This is such a good book!” That doesn’t often happen. So…. five stars from me.

This is so well written. Two women feature throughout the story, mother and daughter. Well managed but written by a man, which shows through in subtle ways here and There.If you wonder today just what Fake News is, this is the book for you. Fake News is nothing new. A book that’s hard to put down.I haven’t enjoyed a book so much in ages as I’ve enjoyed this one. A story about spies yes, but more a story about the people.

Restless begins in 1939. Eva DelectorskIaya is a 28-year-old emigree living in Paris. As war breaks out, she is recruited for the British Secret Service. Under the guidance and training from a mysterious Englishman, Lucas RomerEva becomes a master spy who eventually learns to trust no one, even the man she loves. In order to survive, she fakes her disappearance, but once a spy – always a spy. After the war, she carefully builds her life as a regular English wife and mother of her one and only daughter. When her daughter is a mother herself, Eva finally shares her secret past with her, in order for her assistance with one final assignment.This is a fast-moving, densely plotted story that keeps the reader wanting more. Highly recommended