Our Friends In Berlin

Anthony Quinn

Jonathan Cape €18.20

It’s 1941 and Blitz-battered London has become an ‘open-air madhouse’, its moonlit nights deadly, its morning air sulphurous. For Amy Strallen, there’s the thinnest of silver linings: business at her Mayfair marriage bureau is booming. M15 agent Jack Hoste is also busier than ever before, charged with containing a rabid rabble of home-grown Nazis. Most are cranks but one, Marita Pardoe, is potentially lethal, and when she turns out to have longstanding links to Amy, the stage is set for a cracking tale of highstakes espionage and poignant romance. It’s elegantly observed, expertly paced and intensely atmospheric.