From the bestselling author of Headlong , a mesmerizing novel about secrecy, imagination, and a child's game turned deadly earnest 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 images, we are brought back to a quiet, suburan 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, ferreting out their secrets. But when Keith utters six shocking words, the boys' game of espionage takes a sinister and unintended turn. A wife's simple errands and a family's ordinary rituals-once the focus of childish speculation-become the tragic elements of adult catastrophe. In gripping prose, charged with emotional intensity, Spies reaches into the moral confusion of youth to reveal a reality filled with deceptions and betrayals, where the bonds of friendship, marriage, and family are unravelled by cowardice and erotic desire. Master illusionist Michael Frayn powerfully demonstrates, yet again, that what appears to be happening in front of our eyes often turns out to be something we can't see at all. In Michael Frayn's novel Spies an old man returns to the scene of his seemingly ordinary suburban childhood. Stephen Wheatley is unsure of what he is seeking, but as he walks once-familiar streets he hasn't seen in 50 years, he unfolds a story of childish games colliding cruelly with adult realities. It is wartime and Stephen's friend Keith makes the momentous announcement that his mother is a German spy. The two boys begin to spy on the supposed spy, following her on her trips to the shops and to the post office, and reading her diary. Keith's mother does have secrets to conceal but they are not the ones the boys suspect. Frayn skillfully manipulates his plot so that the reader's growing awareness of the truth remains just a few steps beyond young Stephen's dawning realization that he is trespassing on painful and dangerous territory. The only false notes occur in the final chapter when the central revelation is too swiftly followed by further disclosures about Stephen and his family that seem somehow unnecessary and make the denouement less satisfyingly conclusive. This is a much sparer and less expansive book than Frayn's 1999 novel Headlong , which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. --Nick Rennison, Amazon.co.uk Following up Booker Prize finalist Headlong and the Tony Award-winning Copenhagen, Frayn crafts a story of World War II London, where two boys playing at spy discover things about family and neighbors they shouldn't know. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. The latest book from the prolific Frayn, a British playwright ( Noises Off! ) and novelist ( Headlong , 1999), is a compelling story about secrecy and betrayal. Stephen Wheatley returns to the neighborhood where he grew up during World War II and slowly pieces together a disturbing incident from his childhood. When his best friend, Keith, announces that his mother is a German spy, the two take to following her everywhere--to the post office, the market, her sister's house. They rifle through her desk, read her diary, and spy on her from behind the shrubs near Keith's house. What they don't realize is that Keith's mother does indeed have something to hide, but her secret is not what they think; their spying has far more personal and devastating consequences than they could have imagined. Frayn builds quite a bit of suspense, and the reader is always one step ahead of Stephen in discerning the nature of the secret. What is truly remarkable about this novel, though, is the way Frayn perfectly captures the dynamics of childhood friendships. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved From the bestselling author of Headlong, and “a master of intellectual mystery masquerading as ripping popular entertainment...a gorgeous melancholy that shivers the mind.” — The New York Times Book Review “Marvelously effective...a novel of extraordinary power and wisdom, a tour de force of humane insight.” — The Baltimore Sun “Bernard Shaw couldn’t do it, Henry James couldn’t do it, but the ingenious English author Michael Frayn does do it: write novels and plays with equal success. [He] has extended his reach and seriousness while keeping a sprightly intellectuality.” —John Updike, The New Yorker “In Spies , recollections of actual things—the ‘disconcerting perfume’ of privet hedges in bloom and the flavor of lemon barley water—make Frayn’s story so real you can taste it.” — Boston Herald “[ Spies ] convinces American readers that Frayn, author of some thirteen novels and sixteen plays, is a literary double threat.” — The Boston Globe Michael Frayn is the author of nine novels, including the bestselling Headlong , which was a New York Times Editor's Ch