Helen Dunmore

By the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lie. Forbidden love, intimate betrayal and the devastating power of exposure drive Helen Dunmore's remarkable new novel. London, November, 1960: the Cold War is at its height. Spy fever fills the newspapers, and the political establishment knows how and where to bury its secrets. When a highly sensitive file goes missing, Simon Callington is accused of passing information to the Soviets, and arrested. His wife, Lily, suspects that his imprisonment is part of a cover-up, and that more powerful men than Simon will do anything to prevent their own downfall. She knows that she too is in danger, and must fight to protect her children. But what she does not realise is that Simon has hidden vital truths about his past, and may be found guilty of another crime that carries with it an even greater penalty.

Exposure

“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

Exposure

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