Talking to Strange Men
A stand-alone novel published by Hutchinson in 1987
He was crossing the bridge over the river from the western bank to the east. The bridge, for some forgotten reason to do with the Second World War, was called Rostock. It was a suspension bridge, painted a dull dark red, with walkways on either side. Up river three more bridges, Alexandra and St Stephen’s and Randolph, gleamed with lights, both stationary and in motion, and the water beneath them looked black and glittering from the mass of lights reflected in its moving swelling surface …
Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections. It sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but the agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play, unaware of the danger awaiting them if their messages are intercepted.
John Creevey doesn’t know the truth behind the mysterious codes he reads. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men.
When faced with the reality of his beloved wife Jennifer’s defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for, a man with a disturbing connection to the schoolboys. And soon, the schoolboys are playing more than just a game.
Notes
- Adapted for TV in 1992 by Julian Bond.
Contemporary Reads 1
Nina Bawden - Circles of Deceit
Iris Murdoch - The Book And The Brotherhood
Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah
Scott Turow - Presumed Innocent
James Ellroy - The Black Dahlia
Robert Crais - The Monkey’s Raincoat
Footnotes
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