Hamm Court Book Club – Page 47 – For the enjoyment of friends, books and wine …

Restless by William Boyd

It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can’t do it alone: she needs her daughter’s help.

What happens to your life when everything you thought you knew about your mother turns out to be an elaborate lie? Ruth Gilmartin discovers the strange and haunting truth about her mother, Sally, during the long hot summer of 1976. For Sally Gilmartin is not what she seems at all. Russian by birth, she was recruited into the British Secret Service in Paris in 1939 and spent the war years as a spy. But once a spy, always a spy. Sally Gilmartin has far too many dangerous secrets, and she has no one to trust. Before it is too late, she must confront the demons of her past. This time though she can’t do it alone, she needs Ruth’s help. “Restless” is yet another tour de force from William Boyd. Exploring the devastating consequences of duplicity and betrayal, it is a thrilling novel that captures the drama of the Second World War and a remarkable portrait of a female spy. Full of suspense, emotion and history, this is storytelling at its very finest.

Janine 9

June 7

Rebecca 8

Trude 7

jane 7

Janet 7

Sally 8

Christine 9

Cai 8

This Boy by Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson’s childhood was not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in the slums of post-war Britain, but in its transition from two-parent family to single mother and then to no parents at all…

This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan’s mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child.

Played out against the background of a vanishing community living in condemned housing, the story moves from post-war austerity in pre-gentrified Notting Hill, through the race riots, school on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, to the rock-and-roll years, making a record in Denmark Street and becoming a husband and father whilst still in his teens.

This Boy is one man’s story, but it is also a story of England and the West London slums which are so hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries.

Elaine 5

June 8

Trude 5

Sally 7

Cai 7

Janine 8

Janet 7

Christine 6

Jane 7