Bored with life as a teacher in an Edinburgh girls’ school, artist Rosie recognises Alex Kuznetsov from her previous life as a decoder at Bletchley Park.
Alex, a war hero and anti-Soviet intelligence officer, is running a Russian language school for National Servicemen to put Britain’s best and brightest young men through intensive training as translators and intelligence operators in the event of a third world war.
During an ardent courtship, Rosie joins the JSSL as an art teacher, but she soon finds out that there is more to her role as Alex gains her confidence and persuades her to take on a daring undercover espionage mission in a Highland country house.
Rosie discovers that the world of spies is full of treachery, manipulation and deceit, and that what started out as a thrilling game can have deadly consequences. Faced with a choice between duty and love, and between stability and adventure, Rosie must decide where her loyalties lie.
Maggie Ritchie’s novel, Looking for Evelyn, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for Best Published Novel 2018. Her debut novel, Paris Kiss (2015), won the Curtis Brown Prize, was runner up for the Sceptre Prize, and longlisted for the Mslexia First Novel Competition. Daisy Chain was published by Two Roads/ Hachette in 2021 following a Society of Authors funded research trip to Shanghai. Maggie graduated with Distinction rom the University of Glasgow’s MLitt in Creative Writing. A journalist, she lives in Scotland with her husband and son.
My thoughts: I really enjoyed this 1950s set novel about the beginnings of the Cold War. Rosie, an artist, previously worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and is bored teaching at a girls’ school in Edinburgh.
When handsome Alex Kuznetsov arrives back in her life with an intriguing offer, to teach art to the men learning Russian (including Dennis Potter, Michael Frayn and Alan Bennett) as their national service near Crail in Fife.
While there, she and Alex fall in love and he convinces her that an old family friend is secretly spying for the Soviets, with her help he can prove this and stop the plans for a nuclear submarine getting into Russian hands. But is he telling her the truth?
Rosie, for all her wartime experience and obvious intelligence is hoodwinked by the oldest trick in the book – love. As events overtake her, she loses her heart and is threatened with treason. Unsure who to trust as people are revealed to be in the pay of various governments, she struggles to extricate herself from the mess she’s in.
An intelligent, intriguing and enjoyable read about a somewhat forgotten period in history, that is having something of a revival due to current political and military posturing. I liked Rosie a lot and felt for her, torn between what she knows is right and her love for the White Raven.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 