The Innocent
Into the divided city of Berlin comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in a plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life – and to lose his unwanted innocence.
The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life – and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening – a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"Never less than wholly entertaining." --"The Wall Street Journal"
"Deft, taut fiction. . . . Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best." --"Time"
"So exhaustively suspenseful that it should be devoured at one sitting. . . . McEwan fuses a spy-novel plot with themes as venerable as the myth of Adam and Eve." --"Newsweek"
"Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat." --Jonathan Carroll, "The Washington Post Book World"
"Powerful and disturbing . . . a tour de force." --"The New York Times"
"Never less than wholly entertaining." The Wall Street Journal
"Deft, taut fiction. . . . Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best." Time
"So exhaustively suspenseful that it should be devoured at one sitting. . . . McEwan fuses a spy-novel plot with themes as venerable as the myth of Adam and Eve." Newsweek
"Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat." Jonathan Carroll, The Washington Post Book World
"Powerful and disturbing . . . a tour de force." The New York Times"
From the Publisher:
"Deft, taut fiction. . . . Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best." --"Time"
"So exhaustively suspenseful that it should be devoured at one sitting. . . . McEwan fuses a spy-novel plot with themes as venerable as the myth of Adam and Eve." --"Newsweek"
"Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat." --Jonathan Carroll, "The Washington Post Book World"
"Powerful and disturbing . . . a tour de force." --"The New York Times"
"Never less than wholly entertaining." The Wall Street Journal
"Deft, taut fiction. . . . Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best." Time
"So exhaustively suspenseful that it should be devoured at one sitting. . . . McEwan fuses a spy-novel plot with themes as venerable as the myth of Adam and Eve." Newsweek
"Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat." Jonathan Carroll, The Washington Post Book World
"Powerful and disturbing . . . a tour de force." The New York Times"
"Never less than wholly entertaining." The Wall Street Journal
"Deft, taut fiction. . . . Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best." Time
"So exhaustively suspenseful that it should be devoured at one sitting. . . . McEwan fuses a spy-novel plot with themes as venerable as the myth of Adam and Eve." Newsweek
"Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat." Jonathan Carroll, The Washington Post Book World
"Powerful and disturbing . . . a tour de force." The New York Times
"'Crackles like thin ice with suspense' Mail on Sunday
'To call The Innocent a spy novel would be like calling Lord of the Flies a boy's adventure yarn...the plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense...it ensures McEwan's major staus' John Carey, Sunday Times
'To call The Innocent a spy novel would be like calling Lord of the Flies a boy's adventure yarn...the plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense...it ensures McEwan's major staus' John Carey, Sunday Times
'Generous in scale, simple in its hideous impact...Ironically, he has celebrated the obsequies of East-West spy thriller by writing one of the subtlest' David Hughes, Mail on Sunday
'The sheer cleverness of the book is dazzling, and only fully to be appreciated as you turn the last page: but then cleverness is a real virtue here, the best guide possible to the questionable territory between innocence and whatever comes after' Michael Wood, London Review of Books
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarperCollins
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 0007207026
- ISBN 13 9780007207022
- BindingAudio CD
- EditorNicholl Kati
- Rating
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