First published 2003
A forgotten scent pulls Stephen Wheatley back to the London suburb where he spent a troubled wartime summer as a boy. He walks the quiet streets where he once played spy games with his friend Keith, watching neighbors and cataloging their secrets. The two boys turned ordinary suburban life into their private war, tracking movements and hunting for hidden truths. Then Keith spoke six words that changed everything. Their innocent game twisted into something darker, transforming a neighbor's daily routines into the raw material of adult disaster. As Stephen reconstructs those distant months, the simple errands of a housewife and the rhythms of family life reveal themselves as something else entirely. The child's world of games and the adult world of deception blur together, and what seemed clear at the time dissolves into uncertainty.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, espionage
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: Wartime
261 pages · Paperback · Picador