The Company of Strangers Book

This tale of divided loyalties and a bitter war fought behind polite façades is Wilson's most ambitious and sprawling novel yet, set in the stupefying heat of Lisbon in 1944. We are vividly shown a city that echoes Bogart's Casablanca, where spies and informers make every conversation a minefield. The Germans have developed rocket technology, and are on the brink of atomic breakthrough. The allies are keen to stop the German secret weapon, and their operative is Andrea Aspinall, a young mathematician struggling to come to terms with the sophisticated world in which she finds herself. Andrea meets Karl Voss, a military attaché to the German legation, who is embittered and compromised by his part in the death the Reichsminister, and traumatised by the death of his beloved brother in Stalingrad. This ill-assorted couple attempts to forge a relationship in a world of treachery and death. After a terrifying climax, the novel moves to the paranoid world of Cold War Germany, and Andrea finds that she must make grim choices in a snowbound East Berlin.Wilson tackles his epic canvas with the kind of assurance that is no surprise to his admirers, and at nearly 500 pages, this is truly a book of ambitious reach. But Wilson's speciality is, of course, characterisation, and both Andrea and Voss are painted with the utmost subtlety and intelligence. Andrea's development from naive young girl to the woman that war makes of her is very sharply handled. It must be said, though, that this may not be the best novel for those new to Wilson: after a mesmerising opening scene with Voss watching Hitler's madness infect those around him, the author undoubtedly takes his time to create his minutely detailed world, and the tautness of the early books is replaced by a more leisurely inclusiveness reminiscent of late le Carré. But those who allow themselves to fall under the author's Ancient Mariner-like spell will find this among his most rewarding and complex novels. --Barry ForshawRead More