A new Ian McEwan book? Well, what are you going to do? You have to download and read it, right? After all it will probably end up on the Booker list, no?
Well, actually, no. This book didn't make the even the long list for the Booker, and I think the reason may be that this book is McEwan by numbers.
Serena Frome is recruited into MI5 out of Cambridge University, where she has gone to study Maths at her mother's insistence. She works on some low level projects before getting involved in Sweet Tooth, a project to secretly recruit and financially support writers who are hostile to Communism. Serena starts an affair with, and eventually falls in love with the author she has been sent to recruit. Of course, such a massive deceit is not going to end well for them.
Perhaps I am just too young to recall the 70s; the political wrangling and the 3 day week. Perhaps I didn't take enough notice of the Cold War at the time, but this book failed to grab me.
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