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The latest book from the prolific Frayn, a British playwright (Noises Off!) and novelist (Headlong, 1999), is a compelling story about secrecy and betrayal. Stephen Wheatley returns to the neighborhood where he grew up during World War II and slowly pieces together a disturbing incident from his childhood. When his best friend, Keith, announces that his mother is a German spy, the two take to following her everywhere--to the post office, the market, her sister's house. They rifle through her desk, read her diary, and spy on her from behind the shrubs near Keith's house. What they don't realize is that Keith's mother does indeed have something to hide, but her secret is not what they think; their spying has far more personal and devastating consequences than they could have imagined. Frayn builds quite a bit of suspense, and the reader is always one step ahead of Stephen in discerning the nature of the secret. What is truly remarkable about this novel, though, is the way Frayn perfectly captures the dynamics of childhood friendships. --Joanne Wilkinson

Publishers Weekly
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By the author of the bestselling Booker Prize finalist Headlong, this dark, nostalgic and bittersweet parable evokes the childhood escapades of an isolated and hapless young boy caught up in the uncertainties of wartime London in the early 1940s, just after the horrors of the Luftwaffe blitz. Stephen Wheatley, now a grandfather living abroad, is drawn back to London to revisit his boyhood home, to deal with the complexities and eventual tragedy engendered by what seemed a harmless game of spy when he was just a schoolboy during WWII. His best friend at the time was Keith Hayward, the bright son of rather standoffish parents; Keith and Stephen embark on a childish adventure after Keith announces that his British mother is a German spy. The murky plot follows their frustrations as they try to shadow Keith's mum as she goes through the mundane ritual of stopping by her sister's house with letters and a shopping basket, only to disappear into the neighboring streets. Discovering at last that she takes a route through the culvert beneath the railroad and leaves letters in a box hidden on the other side, they eventually learn that she sometimes meets a tattered, bearded tramp hiding in a bombed-out cellar. When Keith's mum finally realizes they have found her out, she secretly seeks Stephen's loyalty, making him complicit. Thrust into a role far beyond his years, but helpless to refuse, he is overwhelmed. As it plays out to a surprising denouement, this enigmatic melodrama will keep readers' attention firmly in hand. (Apr. 3) Forecast: Fans of Headlong may miss that novel's dark comedy, but those who appreciate Frayn for the rigorous intelligence of his fiction will find him in fine form here. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal
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Following up Booker Prize finalist Headlong and the Tony Award-winning Copenhagen, Frayn crafts a story of World War II London, where two boys playing at spy discover things about family and neighbors they shouldn't know. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Bitter memories of the home front during WWII resurface in this muted yet moving tenth novel from popular British author Frayn (The Copenhagen Papers, 2001, etc.) and playwright (Noises Off, etc.). In a Proustian prologue, a mysteriously sweet outdoor aroma evokes indistinct memories of its narrator Stephen Wheatley's youth in a tightly knit suburban "close" during the war years. Returning to his home village, the now elderly Stephen "sees" a series of scenes featuring his young self and his confident, domineering best friend Keith Hayward. "He was the officers corps in our two-man army," Stephen muses, while recalling the elaborate system of wires and tunnels the boys had constructed between their two houses, and the military games they had played in imitation of the larger conflict ongoing in Europe-culminating in acts of secrecy and surveillance prompted by Keith's astonishing declaration that "My mother is a German spy." Frayn sticks close to Stephen's timid sensibility, thrown into tormented relief by the boy's growing suspicion that Mrs. Hayward's frequent brief absences from home and habit of "visiting" a nearby railway tunnel are undertaken, not out of solidarity with the enemy, but in order to meet with a lover-who is perhaps a "downed" German pilot, or an "old tramp" suspected of being a sexual deviant; or in fact something much less romantic and thrilling. The story is somewhat thinly plotted, and little seems to happen-outside Stephen's busy imagination, at least-for a distractingly long time. But Frayn holds our attention with sharp economical characterizations of the frail and beautiful Mrs. Hayward, Stephen's annoyingly ordinary own family, and Keith's supremely self-confident father, a misogynistic martinet who virtually radiates smiling, perfectly controlled menace. Only a curious overabundance of climactic surprise-twists vitiates the skill with which Stephen's ordeal of subterfuge and guilt is portrayed. A bit reminiscent of L.P. Hartley's modern classic The Go-Between but, still, an essentially original and very affecting tale.