Exposure
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“An unconventional thriller [and] a page turner . . . As much a surprising love story as it is a tale of spies” (The New York Times Book Review).
In 1960 London, the Cold War is at its height, and a spy may be a friend or neighbor, colleague or lover. Two colleagues, Giles Holloway and Simon Callington, face a terrible dilemma over a missing top-secret file.
At the end of a suburban garden, in the pouring rain, Simon’s wife, Lily, buries a briefcase containing the file deep in the earth. She believes that in doing so she is protecting her family. What she will learn is that no one is immune from betrayal or the devastating consequences of exposure.
“Dunmore’s strategy, placing a triangle of past and present loves within a spy novel, yields an unexpected dividend. Even the most ordinary elements of life—the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her children, meeting someone special, what remains unsaid within a marriage—become viscerally exciting.” —The New Yorker
“Exposure is many things at once—an espionage thriller, a forbidden-love story, an immigrant’s tale . . . A novel you won’t be able to shake.” —Entertainment Weekly
“One of those books that you read with your heart in your mouth, your mind fully engaged, and with a sense of desolation as you note the dwindling number of pages left before it comes to an end.” —Chicago Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dunmore's (The Lie) novel of Cold War domestic intrigue depicts secrets, lies, treachery, and murder amid the seemingly safe surroundings of 1960s England. Facades begin crumbling and cover stories unravel when Admiralty member and master of concealment Giles Holloway drunkenly falls in his apartment while photographing a top secret file. From his hospital bed, with a leg in a cast and an arm hooked to transfusion tubes, Giles calls his colleague and longtime friend Simon Callington and asks him to return the file to the office before its absence becomes known. Giles believes Simon will comply because Simon owes Giles his job, and because Giles has something on Simon: they were once lovers. Now a husband with three children, Simon agrees to do Giles's bidding until he realizes Giles is spying for the Russians, almost certainly not alone. Simon places the file in Giles's briefcase and hides it; his wife, Lily, soon discovers it in their hallway closet behind the Wellington boots. Born Jewish in Nazi Germany, Lily knows how to handle herself under duress. As Simon is wrongly imprisoned for espionage, she buries the briefcase, relocates the family to Kent, and navigates her way through false accusations and unsettling truths. Dunmore deftly creates a noir atmosphere, revealing layers of complexity in personal relationships darkened by non-battlefield conflict and blending psychological observations reminiscent of Henry James with le Carr esque betrayals.
