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Available
Description
Fiction. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML: "I am Eva Delectorskaya," Sally Gilmartin announces, and so on a warm summer afternoon in 1976 her daughter, Ruth, learns that everything she ever knew about her mother was a carefully constructed lie. Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold village; Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone. Three decades later the secrets of Sally's past still haunt her. Someone is trying to kill her and at last she has decided to trust Ruth with her story. Ruth, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of her own life as a young single mother with an unfinished graduate degree and escalating dependence on alcohol. She is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother's past�??the mysterious death of Eva's beloved brother, her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward American involvement in the war, her dangerous romantic entanglement. Now Sally wants to find the man who recruited her for the secret service, and she needs Ruth's help. William Boyd's Restless is a brilliant espionage audiobook and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is listening at its finest.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Lman
Restless: unable to relax; worried and uneasy; agitated and edgy.
What a perfectly applicable definition for the underlying theme of this book - in the characters and with the storyline; the reader rewarded with a beautifully-crafted, undeniably entertaining, page-turner of a latter-day spy
In this story of intrigue and disclosure, Ruth Gilmartin, single mother, academic and English tutor, has the very foundations of her tad bohemian lifestyle in Oxfordshire severely shaken in the long, hot summer of 1976. On a regular weekend visit to her widowed mother, Sally, she is presented with a change-in-personality and a folder containing the first chapter of the story of Eva Delectorskaya – apparently her mother’s real name! And as Ruth muddles through the finer points of her own reality, she is slowly brought to awareness of the (previously-unknown) circumstances of mother’s past – in her participation and involvement in wartime espionage. Artfully fluctuating between the two women and their lives, but grounded in the here and now by the considerable detail of Ruth’s daily existence, Eva’s complete story, fed to her daughter in purposeful instalments, unfolds unnervingly - from her life in Paris, her recruitment and training in the pre-war years, to her direct contribution to the war effort across many continents; and their distressing consequences. Plus the reason her mother is, at long last, revealing these dark, long-held secrets to her daughter.
This is obviously a well-researched story; the veracity complemented perfectly by the well-constructed prose. To me, it was such an easy read! And the rotation between the two contrasting stories of present-day daughter and wartime mother – perhaps somewhat irritating to some - permitted the trepidation, and, dare I say, restlessness, to ratchet up in intensity. The apprehension and the pressure of Eva’s existence are augmented by the ease in which similar paranoia and anxiety become evident in her daughter’s everyday life – thus emphasising the extremes her mother must have suffered! How clever is that? I found the lives of both equally fascinating, though Eva’s wartime experiences enthralled in their authenticity – I learnt so much! And despite a moderately transparent solution to Eva’s plot-line, it is uncertain what resultant actions may eventuate, allowing a slow build-up of tension to penetrate the current play.
What is certain is that this book embraces the long-lasting and lingering repercussions of war, accentuated within a tight and enthralling thriller. And regardless of how lives may be resurrected, and how valiantly attempts are made to resume a peacetime life, the residual effects remain forever. In some cases, they permanently shape an uneasy continuation; no matter if long-awaited closure is eventually achieved. It is not easy to change the habits of a lifetime…and sometimes, it seems, it is essential not to.
A compelling tale indeed…
(Aug 22, 2009)
What a perfectly applicable definition for the underlying theme of this book - in the characters and with the storyline; the reader rewarded with a beautifully-crafted, undeniably entertaining, page-turner of a latter-day spy
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thriller.In this story of intrigue and disclosure, Ruth Gilmartin, single mother, academic and English tutor, has the very foundations of her tad bohemian lifestyle in Oxfordshire severely shaken in the long, hot summer of 1976. On a regular weekend visit to her widowed mother, Sally, she is presented with a change-in-personality and a folder containing the first chapter of the story of Eva Delectorskaya – apparently her mother’s real name! And as Ruth muddles through the finer points of her own reality, she is slowly brought to awareness of the (previously-unknown) circumstances of mother’s past – in her participation and involvement in wartime espionage. Artfully fluctuating between the two women and their lives, but grounded in the here and now by the considerable detail of Ruth’s daily existence, Eva’s complete story, fed to her daughter in purposeful instalments, unfolds unnervingly - from her life in Paris, her recruitment and training in the pre-war years, to her direct contribution to the war effort across many continents; and their distressing consequences. Plus the reason her mother is, at long last, revealing these dark, long-held secrets to her daughter.
This is obviously a well-researched story; the veracity complemented perfectly by the well-constructed prose. To me, it was such an easy read! And the rotation between the two contrasting stories of present-day daughter and wartime mother – perhaps somewhat irritating to some - permitted the trepidation, and, dare I say, restlessness, to ratchet up in intensity. The apprehension and the pressure of Eva’s existence are augmented by the ease in which similar paranoia and anxiety become evident in her daughter’s everyday life – thus emphasising the extremes her mother must have suffered! How clever is that? I found the lives of both equally fascinating, though Eva’s wartime experiences enthralled in their authenticity – I learnt so much! And despite a moderately transparent solution to Eva’s plot-line, it is uncertain what resultant actions may eventuate, allowing a slow build-up of tension to penetrate the current play.
What is certain is that this book embraces the long-lasting and lingering repercussions of war, accentuated within a tight and enthralling thriller. And regardless of how lives may be resurrected, and how valiantly attempts are made to resume a peacetime life, the residual effects remain forever. In some cases, they permanently shape an uneasy continuation; no matter if long-awaited closure is eventually achieved. It is not easy to change the habits of a lifetime…and sometimes, it seems, it is essential not to.
A compelling tale indeed…
(Aug 22, 2009)
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LibraryThing member msbaba
William Boyd’s latest novel, Restless, is an exceptional and wholly brilliant literary work on the theme of deception. It is also a compelling thriller, an intricate spy novel, and a fascinating work of historical fiction that uncovers little-known and embarrassing realities about the true
The story concerns two women, Sally Gilmartin, a seemingly ordinary aging British widow, and her daughter Ruth, a twenty-eight-year-old single mother. Ruth has a flat in Oxford and her mother lives in a cottage not too far away in the outlying rural district of Oxfordshire. Ruth is an Oxford graduate student trying to finish her Ph.D. thesis while earning a living teaching English to foreigners. As the novel opens, Ruth is worried about her mother: she seems constantly restless and is showing increasing signs of paranoia. Eventually, the mother divulges the reason for her persistent state of unease: she suspects that someone is out to kill her. In explanation, the mother gives the daughter the first chapter of a biography entitled The Story of Eva Delectorskaya, then she shocks her daughter even more by admitting that the story is, in fact, her own autobiography. Sally Gilmartin was the British spy Eva Delectorskaya, and she’s been on the run and in hiding for the past 35 years. Now she fears that someone has found her out and plans to kill her.
For the rest of the novel, the chapters alternate between Sally’s story of her life as a British spy from 1939 to 1942, and the ongoing story of Ruth during the unusually hot British summer of 1976. Sally doles out the chapters of her life as a spy in bits and pieces over the course of a few months. While Ruth fearfully waits for each new installment of her mother’s harrowing tale, she not only has a hard time coming to grips with the reality of her mother’s past, but also lives through her own summer of shady happenings. Unintentionally, Ruth becomes involved with political activists and starts to experience her own restlessness and paranoia—deceptions build upon deceptions.
Eventually, the two stories come together in an exciting and totally unpredictable denouement. The ending is exceptionally clever! You’ll be thinking about the twists and turns of this ending long after you’ve finished the last page. In particular, you’ll be thinking about the nature of deception…even deception between mother and daughter.
Throughout the novel, Boyd’s message is clear: deception is dehumanizing, and if the business of spies is deception, then the price they pay is to live in a world without trust. Restless won the 2006 Costa Novel Award, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the United Kingdom, recognizing the best novel of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. This was the first novel I’ve had the pleasure of reading by William Boyd. I am pleased to see that he’s written nine other novels, including many award winners. I plan to read a lot more by William Boyd in the coming year.
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relationship between Great Britain and the United States in the years immediately preceding the latter’s entry into World War II. Don’t pick up this book if you are looking for a genre-type spy novel. This is definitely not that type of book. This is an historically based literary novel concerning British espionage against the United States in three years leading up to Pearl Harbor. If that appeals to you, you won’t be disappointed. This book gets my highest recommendation, and is certainly one of the best books I’ve read all year. The story concerns two women, Sally Gilmartin, a seemingly ordinary aging British widow, and her daughter Ruth, a twenty-eight-year-old single mother. Ruth has a flat in Oxford and her mother lives in a cottage not too far away in the outlying rural district of Oxfordshire. Ruth is an Oxford graduate student trying to finish her Ph.D. thesis while earning a living teaching English to foreigners. As the novel opens, Ruth is worried about her mother: she seems constantly restless and is showing increasing signs of paranoia. Eventually, the mother divulges the reason for her persistent state of unease: she suspects that someone is out to kill her. In explanation, the mother gives the daughter the first chapter of a biography entitled The Story of Eva Delectorskaya, then she shocks her daughter even more by admitting that the story is, in fact, her own autobiography. Sally Gilmartin was the British spy Eva Delectorskaya, and she’s been on the run and in hiding for the past 35 years. Now she fears that someone has found her out and plans to kill her.
For the rest of the novel, the chapters alternate between Sally’s story of her life as a British spy from 1939 to 1942, and the ongoing story of Ruth during the unusually hot British summer of 1976. Sally doles out the chapters of her life as a spy in bits and pieces over the course of a few months. While Ruth fearfully waits for each new installment of her mother’s harrowing tale, she not only has a hard time coming to grips with the reality of her mother’s past, but also lives through her own summer of shady happenings. Unintentionally, Ruth becomes involved with political activists and starts to experience her own restlessness and paranoia—deceptions build upon deceptions.
Eventually, the two stories come together in an exciting and totally unpredictable denouement. The ending is exceptionally clever! You’ll be thinking about the twists and turns of this ending long after you’ve finished the last page. In particular, you’ll be thinking about the nature of deception…even deception between mother and daughter.
Throughout the novel, Boyd’s message is clear: deception is dehumanizing, and if the business of spies is deception, then the price they pay is to live in a world without trust. Restless won the 2006 Costa Novel Award, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the United Kingdom, recognizing the best novel of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. This was the first novel I’ve had the pleasure of reading by William Boyd. I am pleased to see that he’s written nine other novels, including many award winners. I plan to read a lot more by William Boyd in the coming year.
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LibraryThing member ebethe
It was very difficult for me to reconcile the wonderful reviews with the book. The book kind of trudged from place to place, and was written almost like it was prepared to be a movie script. At least it was interesting enough to prompt me to look up the BSC on the internet and find out that it was
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real. And I will give Boyd another chance to improvess me. Show Less
LibraryThing member jbeem
In this crackling spy thriller, set in the summer of 1976, a woman discovers that her mother is not Sally Gilmartin, a tweedy English housewife, but Eva Delectorskaya, a White Russian and English spy who, in 1941, killed an enemy hit man and has been on the run ever since. Boyd, right, unfolds
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Eva’s story in installments: her recruitment to the Secret Service in Paris, her affair with her English spymaster and her work in New York doling out propaganda to coax America into the Second World War- NYTimes rec Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiler69
It's 1976, and Ruth is about to discover that the woman she has always known as Sally Gilmartin, an ordinary British housewife and mother, actually started out her life as Eva Delectorskaya, Russian-born and eventually recruited by the British secret service just before the start of WWII. Ruth, who
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teaches English to foreign students and is a single mother to a little boy, has no idea why her own mother, who has been acting strangely lately, has suddenly decided to share all the secrets of her training and missions during the war in detailed manuscripts. The story alternates between the "present" of 1976 and Eva Delectorskaya's fascinating story. I listened to the audio version which included an interview with the author, who said that he made up all the details of how he imagined the secret service would operate. It hardly matters whether Boyd based himself on facts or not, because he obviously has a very active imagination, and the story he weaves together holds the reader in fascination from beginning to end. Show Less
LibraryThing member MikeFarquhar
Finished Restless by William Boyd today, which was a decent espionage thriller.
In rural Oxfordshire in 1976, Ruth Gilmartin lives a relatively uneventful life; at 28, she is a single mother, trying to write a PhD thesis, and earning a living teaching English as a foreign language. Her life is
Sally was Eva Delectorskaya, a half-Russian, half-English migrant, who, aged 28, was recruited by British Intelligence in Paris just before the outbreak of WWII. Gradually, 'Sally' reveals her secret past to her daughter...how she was recruited, what she did during the war, and how her last operation in Mexico went horribly wrong as one of her own betrayed her. Now, a generation later, with an increasing feeling that she is being hunted, Eva is determined to lay old ghosts to rest once and for all - and she will need her daughter's help to do it.
It's a briskly written thriller, alternating chapters telling Eva's story as she sets it out for her daughter, with chapters focussed around Ruth in the present day. The WWII stuff is very well done, and covers stuff I don't have that much knowledge of, but am now interested to find out a bit more (Eva works for a branch of British Intelligence which manipulates the media to cause effects on the war effort; pre the fall of France they are based in Belgium, with their main target being Nazi Germany; but in the latter part of the story, during 1941, they have relocated to New York where they are part of a huge British Intelligence operation to change the tide of feeling in the US over entering the War)
What's as impressive though is Boyd's depiction of Ruth's far more mundane life; I was as happy reading her chapters as I was Eva's, and given how interested I was in Eva's story, that's saying something. As the novel progresses, and Eva tells her story in her own way, it becomes clear that she is shaping things to achieve her ends - so that neither Ruth, nor we, really know what is truth, and what is simply there to set us off in a particular direction. The twisty nature of the mind of a spy comes over well.
The conclusion, as Eva manipulates people and events around her to face her past, works reasonably well, but it's in its depiction of British Intelligence in the early part of the war that this shines. An effortless page-turner.
In rural Oxfordshire in 1976, Ruth Gilmartin lives a relatively uneventful life; at 28, she is a single mother, trying to write a PhD thesis, and earning a living teaching English as a foreign language. Her life is
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unremarkable. Then her mother, Sally, hands her the first chapter of a manuscript she has written, in which she sets out how 'Sally Gilmartin' is a fake; the woman that Ruth has known all her life, and the woman Ruth's now dead father married, wasn't a real person at all.Sally was Eva Delectorskaya, a half-Russian, half-English migrant, who, aged 28, was recruited by British Intelligence in Paris just before the outbreak of WWII. Gradually, 'Sally' reveals her secret past to her daughter...how she was recruited, what she did during the war, and how her last operation in Mexico went horribly wrong as one of her own betrayed her. Now, a generation later, with an increasing feeling that she is being hunted, Eva is determined to lay old ghosts to rest once and for all - and she will need her daughter's help to do it.
It's a briskly written thriller, alternating chapters telling Eva's story as she sets it out for her daughter, with chapters focussed around Ruth in the present day. The WWII stuff is very well done, and covers stuff I don't have that much knowledge of, but am now interested to find out a bit more (Eva works for a branch of British Intelligence which manipulates the media to cause effects on the war effort; pre the fall of France they are based in Belgium, with their main target being Nazi Germany; but in the latter part of the story, during 1941, they have relocated to New York where they are part of a huge British Intelligence operation to change the tide of feeling in the US over entering the War)
What's as impressive though is Boyd's depiction of Ruth's far more mundane life; I was as happy reading her chapters as I was Eva's, and given how interested I was in Eva's story, that's saying something. As the novel progresses, and Eva tells her story in her own way, it becomes clear that she is shaping things to achieve her ends - so that neither Ruth, nor we, really know what is truth, and what is simply there to set us off in a particular direction. The twisty nature of the mind of a spy comes over well.
The conclusion, as Eva manipulates people and events around her to face her past, works reasonably well, but it's in its depiction of British Intelligence in the early part of the war that this shines. An effortless page-turner.
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LibraryThing member murraymint11
Gave an insight into the life of a spy during WWII. Enjoyed the references to Oxford in the 1970's (my era), but lost interest in both the plots about 2/3 of the way through. I didn't engage with any of the characters, as none of them had any warmth (except perhaps the Muslim pupil).
LibraryThing member bsquaredinoz
The elevator pitch for the book is a good one. Not surprisingly. I presume that’s what sold it to Boyd’s publishers. It tells the story of Eva Delectorskaya; a Russian born woman who was recruited to work as a British spy in the lead-up to and during WWII. Her main work was in releasing various
I’ll deal with the easiest to explain problem first. Ruth’s story is mostly unnecessary. I have reason to believe Boyd agrees with me given his screenplay for the adaptation and I just wish his editors had done the same when it comes to the book. Even the actual drama that befalls her – the discovery that her mother is an entirely different person from the one she thought she knew – manages to get lost amidst the endless, pointless details of Ruth’s life of teaching lessons, unwelcome house guests and enough events to prove the author had done some research about life in 1976. Ironically there is a running gag that Ruth spends a lot of time reading about the goings-on of a very dull family in the books she uses with her language students and I couldn’t help but think that Ruth’s own story was providing equally dull fodder. As a character Ruth does not seem realistic. Her reactions to everything – her mother’s revelations, the discovery the her son’s uncle is a porn actor or learning there is no milk for tea – are all about the same. The small role she plays in the final act of her mother’s life of spying (Sally determines that her old lover must be sought out and questioned) is necessary to the novel’s overall narrative purpose but the rest is…filler.
Eva (or Sally’s) story should have been more interesting. Her brother dies horribly (this is the event that prompts her recruitment to the security services), she attends spy school in Scotland, goes to Belgium and then the US as an active spy enduring a couple of genuinely scary incidents and embarks on a love affair with her mysterious boss. For reasons I still can’t really explain however none of this is actually interesting in the telling. It somehow comes off as just a list of events rather than a look into a person’s life…reading more like a dull history text than a dramatic novel. Neither Eva nor Lucas (her spy master and lover) engaged me any more than Ruth and I simply didn’t care what happened to any of them.
In a short author interview at the end of the audio edition of the novel William Boyd claims that he wanted to explore the notion of whether or not a spy could ever fully leave their life behind them. Would they, he was apparently trying to ponder, always be restless after their life of tension? I think that would have been a great theme to explore I just don’t think this book did so. We learn almost nothing of Eva’s life between 1942 and 1976 except that she managed to give no hint to either her husband or only child of her ‘other life’ during those decades so it seems she did manage to forget – or at least – ignore that part of her life very well. She rekindles her spy craft quickly enough when she senses trouble in her present day but I didn’t get any feeling at all that she’d been hankering, restlessly, for a return to this life during all the years of abstinence. There’s a very brief exposure of the kind of restlessness I imagine Boyd was thinking of at the end but it’s not enough to account for the lack of it until that point.
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forms of propaganda, most notably of the kind designed to entice the US to enter the war. We learn of this story as it is told – in written form – to Eva’s adult daughter Ruth in 1976. Prior to reading the story Ruth knew her mother as Sally Gilmartin, the slightly eccentric widow of an Irish-born lawyer. Ruth’s present day as a single mother, world’s laziest PhD student and English language tutor unfolds in an intertwining fashion with her mother’s story.I’ll deal with the easiest to explain problem first. Ruth’s story is mostly unnecessary. I have reason to believe Boyd agrees with me given his screenplay for the adaptation and I just wish his editors had done the same when it comes to the book. Even the actual drama that befalls her – the discovery that her mother is an entirely different person from the one she thought she knew – manages to get lost amidst the endless, pointless details of Ruth’s life of teaching lessons, unwelcome house guests and enough events to prove the author had done some research about life in 1976. Ironically there is a running gag that Ruth spends a lot of time reading about the goings-on of a very dull family in the books she uses with her language students and I couldn’t help but think that Ruth’s own story was providing equally dull fodder. As a character Ruth does not seem realistic. Her reactions to everything – her mother’s revelations, the discovery the her son’s uncle is a porn actor or learning there is no milk for tea – are all about the same. The small role she plays in the final act of her mother’s life of spying (Sally determines that her old lover must be sought out and questioned) is necessary to the novel’s overall narrative purpose but the rest is…filler.
Eva (or Sally’s) story should have been more interesting. Her brother dies horribly (this is the event that prompts her recruitment to the security services), she attends spy school in Scotland, goes to Belgium and then the US as an active spy enduring a couple of genuinely scary incidents and embarks on a love affair with her mysterious boss. For reasons I still can’t really explain however none of this is actually interesting in the telling. It somehow comes off as just a list of events rather than a look into a person’s life…reading more like a dull history text than a dramatic novel. Neither Eva nor Lucas (her spy master and lover) engaged me any more than Ruth and I simply didn’t care what happened to any of them.
In a short author interview at the end of the audio edition of the novel William Boyd claims that he wanted to explore the notion of whether or not a spy could ever fully leave their life behind them. Would they, he was apparently trying to ponder, always be restless after their life of tension? I think that would have been a great theme to explore I just don’t think this book did so. We learn almost nothing of Eva’s life between 1942 and 1976 except that she managed to give no hint to either her husband or only child of her ‘other life’ during those decades so it seems she did manage to forget – or at least – ignore that part of her life very well. She rekindles her spy craft quickly enough when she senses trouble in her present day but I didn’t get any feeling at all that she’d been hankering, restlessly, for a return to this life during all the years of abstinence. There’s a very brief exposure of the kind of restlessness I imagine Boyd was thinking of at the end but it’s not enough to account for the lack of it until that point.
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LibraryThing member gocam
Fantastically readable thriller from a master storyteller, effortlessly weaving the stories of covert WW2 British intelligence, a young woman's introduction into the world of espionage, unreliable loyalties and the modern day discoveries of a daughter rediscovering a mother whose past is a whole
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lot more interesting and murky than she ever imagined. Enormous fun. Show Less
LibraryThing member buttes-chaumont
Ever since 1984 when I read “An Ice-cream War” I have read every subsequent William Boyd in the hope that I will enjoy it as much. All his novels have been worth reading but they have tended to become over large and sprawling and there are certain themes that rather tediously keep reappearing
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to no great effect. I had high hopes of this as it seemed to be more concise but in fact I very nearly failed to finish it. There was a major problem with the authorial voice which in both strands of the novel was female. Over and over again, the idioms, vocabulary, observations and preoccupations seemed to be male in origin. This effect was especially pronounced in the character of the younger narrator. Fortunately the plot was enough to engage my continuing interest and eventually I ceased to worry about the voice of the narrator. The story of betrayal at the heart of the book was handled well and showed Boyd’s writing at its best. I still hold out the hope that he can do better and combine the dark humour and humanity that made “An Ice-cream War” such a great book. Show Less
LibraryThing member bobbieharv
Another wonderful William Boyd book:parallel stories about a woman who was a spy during WWII, and her daughter who gets involved in finding the lover who betrayed her mother. Just a very slight letdown at the end, but I wanted it to go on and on.
LibraryThing member wibblypig
Easy read. A good yarn but a alittle on the "Chick story" side. Could do with a good edit. spelling mistakes abound.
LibraryThing member RoseCityReader
Restless is one of the rare novels that is enjoyable from the opening quote to the final paragraph. The story goes back and forth between the cloak-and-dagger world of WWII British espionage and the “contemporary” (1976) relationship between a mother and her daughter.
The premise is that a
While it has its exciting bits, it is not a heart-racing thriller. Instead, gets into the minds of the characters to look at what it was like to have once been a spy, then live a normal life, and what it would be like to learn that your parent had been a spy with an adventurous life no one knew anything about. Fascinating.
NOTE: The audio book version was particularly entertaining because the woman who read did remarkably well on the accents. She had to portray characters with a variety of English and American accents, as well as Irish, Scottish, French, German, Russian, Mexican, and Iranian. She did an incredible job.
The premise is that a
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proper English grandmother, tucked away in a tiny Oxfordshire village, puttering in her garden, gives her daughter a manuscript she wrote, which reveals that she had been a British spy. From there, the story of her life as an intelligence agent develops along with the daughter’s completely new understanding of the person her mother is. While it has its exciting bits, it is not a heart-racing thriller. Instead, gets into the minds of the characters to look at what it was like to have once been a spy, then live a normal life, and what it would be like to learn that your parent had been a spy with an adventurous life no one knew anything about. Fascinating.
NOTE: The audio book version was particularly entertaining because the woman who read did remarkably well on the accents. She had to portray characters with a variety of English and American accents, as well as Irish, Scottish, French, German, Russian, Mexican, and Iranian. She did an incredible job.
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LibraryThing member Jodape
A good read, neatly mixing a contempory mother daughter relationship with a second world war spy adventure.
LibraryThing member domk01
Poor, poor, poor. Gave up 1/2 way through as I'd started guessing what was about to happen. Really enjoyed Eva as a character until, surprise surprise, she ended up sleeping with her boss. After that it all became very predictable and very disappointing. Glad the Costa went somewhere more deserving
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- I'm sure Richard & Judy will lap it up. Show Less
LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
I must say that this is one of the finest mystery stories I've listened to. It is a beautifully-written novel and I'm planning to get more by this author. He is amazing.
The long and the short of the story is this:
Ruth Gilmartin is a graduate student with a young son, working as a tutor while she is
Even if you don't like spy novels, you'll REALLY like this one, because it is so well written that the story grips you from the outset and does not let you go. I can definitely recommend it, especially the audio version; one of the best audio presentations I've ever heard.
The long and the short of the story is this:
Ruth Gilmartin is a graduate student with a young son, working as a tutor while she is
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supposed to be working on her thesis. She visits her mother Sally dutifully every weekend, and on one weekend, her mother makes the startling announcement that she thinks someone is trying to kill her. Ruth notices that there's an edge to her mother; she seems quite paranoid and has been acting very strangely. Sally hands Ruth some papers, which turn out to be the story of Eva Delectorskaya, an emigree from Russia whose story begins with the death of her brother Collier. At Collier's funeral, Eva notices a strange man, who says that he knew Eva's brother and eventually Eva finds out that this man is the head of a clandestine spy operation. It does not take long until Eva is recruited to work for the same organization, and the book details Eva's life as a spy in the 1930s through the present, while it simultaneously looks at Ruth and her relationship to her mother; a mother she obviously realizes that she does not really know. Even if you don't like spy novels, you'll REALLY like this one, because it is so well written that the story grips you from the outset and does not let you go. I can definitely recommend it, especially the audio version; one of the best audio presentations I've ever heard.
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LibraryThing member barnaby
This is a very readable and compelling novel from William Boyd, and author who I had not read at all until I chose this book in my local bookshop. If I'm completetly honest, I only bought it because it has been selected by Richard & Judy (a UK chat show, if you are not familiar with it). It is fast
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paced, going back and fourth through time, when Eva Delectorskaya is a young woman, and when she is an old mother. Some characters you either love or hate (I hated Romer) but that is usually the way with most books. Show Less
LibraryThing member herschelian
Page-turner, intriguing tale of wartime spying and its consequences for the individuals involved. A double helix of a story with the mother's past life spiralling round the daughter's present life.
LibraryThing member nocto
I had a bit of a case of "good book at the wrong time" here; but in the end it came out pretty well.
I started reading this book in the middle of moving house and it was suffering from my only getting to read a few pages at a time. The book flips between two stories: one in "present day" 1976 with
I like this sort of double handed storytelling in general but it wasn't until I found time to sit and read the book in huge chunks that I really began to enjoy it. I seem to have said this here recently too - some books just aren't any good in small doses!
Eva's spy story is quite a thriller in places but the modern portions of the book aren't so exciting. I kept forgetting it was supposed to be 1976 too. I enjoyed the book and if it had been written as a straight WWII spy caper I'd probably have found it a bit much so the "looking back" aspect must have added something to it. But in the end it just wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be.
I'll pick up some more Boyd to read though, sometime soon. This is the first book of his that I've read.
I started reading this book in the middle of moving house and it was suffering from my only getting to read a few pages at a time. The book flips between two stories: one in "present day" 1976 with
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eternal postgrad Ruth Gilmartin working as a tutor in Oxford, looking after her young son and worrying about her mother; and the second story being written down by Ruth's mother, once Russian and called Eva Delectorskaya and part of the British security services in the middle of the second world war.I like this sort of double handed storytelling in general but it wasn't until I found time to sit and read the book in huge chunks that I really began to enjoy it. I seem to have said this here recently too - some books just aren't any good in small doses!
Eva's spy story is quite a thriller in places but the modern portions of the book aren't so exciting. I kept forgetting it was supposed to be 1976 too. I enjoyed the book and if it had been written as a straight WWII spy caper I'd probably have found it a bit much so the "looking back" aspect must have added something to it. But in the end it just wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be.
I'll pick up some more Boyd to read though, sometime soon. This is the first book of his that I've read.
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LibraryThing member Vidalia
Very enjoyable read. Would have liked more of Eva and less of Ruth, but I was still swept along by the story.
LibraryThing member Louashton
Its not a book I would have picked up off the shelf (what does that mean anyway? I'm not even sure what type of book I would pick up off the shelf...), but I do like books about spies, and that is what this book is. As a spy book, this is an awesome tale. Apparently, it was very well researched by
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Boyd - that particlar group of spies to which the story centres is quite a unique group of which little was known. And when you read the book, I'm sure you will understand why - imagine being British spies in America during WWII; yes, you read that correctly - British spies in America during WWII, very intriguing and worth the read. Spies aside, the book is also very much a mother-daughter relationship story, but its such an unusual relationship that I'm sure no-one could relate to the characters (I couldn't anyway) and best ignored as a side plot. Show Less
LibraryThing member Rach974923
This was the first William Boyd book that I ever read and I loved the Eva chapters. I found her to be complex, three-dimensional and her life as a spy gripping. By comparison, the Ruth chapters were a little staid, dull and led the reader down blind alleys. I couldn't wait to finish them to get
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bvack to the Eva storyline. Overall, a very good read but I would have enjoyed it better if it had just been a novel about Eva's life alone. Show Less
LibraryThing member jaygheiser
Very compelling read. Combination spy story and detective story. Two parallel story lines, woman in 1970s UK discovers that her mother was actually born in Russia and was a spy in WWII, a thrilling story that comes out over time.
LibraryThing member brenzi
My new favorite author! Excellent double whammy as two stories are told intermingling at the end. Eva Electorskaya was a WWII spy, unbeknownst to her daughter, until her mother hands her her memoirs and tells her to read. She then goes about the task of finding the spy who betrayed her mother 35
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years ago. Full of suspense, intrigue and a wonderful English writing style that will keep me looking for more of his books. Show Less
LibraryThing member bhowell
DRAFT:
Restless is a great read. I read most of it in one day as I could not put it down. I could recommend the novel as an escapist read except that it is very well written and based on an interesting slice of Anglo-American history, the early years of WWII when the US was resisting the pressure to
Restless is not, however, a heavy war novel. It is the story of the training of a young woman, Eva Delectorskaya, as a spy for the British secret service and her various assignments which included working in the US. The story takes place in the early 40's and in 1976 in Oxford, England. In the broiling heat wave that was summer in 1976 in England, Sally Gilmartin (Eva) reveals her past to her daughter, Ruth, in various installments. An initially skeptical Ruth struggles to understand that her mother is a completely different person than the mother she knew. The English Sally Gilmartin is in fact a Russian emigre who was recruited as a spy for Britain in 1939.
Restless is a great read. I read most of it in one day as I could not put it down. I could recommend the novel as an escapist read except that it is very well written and based on an interesting slice of Anglo-American history, the early years of WWII when the US was resisting the pressure to
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join the war.Restless is not, however, a heavy war novel. It is the story of the training of a young woman, Eva Delectorskaya, as a spy for the British secret service and her various assignments which included working in the US. The story takes place in the early 40's and in 1976 in Oxford, England. In the broiling heat wave that was summer in 1976 in England, Sally Gilmartin (Eva) reveals her past to her daughter, Ruth, in various installments. An initially skeptical Ruth struggles to understand that her mother is a completely different person than the mother she knew. The English Sally Gilmartin is in fact a Russian emigre who was recruited as a spy for Britain in 1939.
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Awards
Costa Book Awards (Shortlist — Novel — 2006)
Audie Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2007)