by William Boyd
First published 2012
Lysander Rief walks through Vienna on a bright August day in 1913, heading to see the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Bensimon. In the waiting room, he encounters Hettie Bull, a troubled artist whose hazel eyes and striking beauty captivate him instantly. She sculpts and paints, lives with the celebrated artist Udo Hoff, and draws Lysander into her electric orbit at a party that same evening. Their affair ignites against the backdrop of a city where Lysander writes in his journal, encounters Freud in cafes, and believes his psychological troubles are healing. War arrives in 1914, pulling him back to London and into the shadowy realm of wartime intelligence. Lysander must crack a secret code that threatens British security while navigating a maze of sex, scandal, and espionage. The boundaries between truth and lies dissolve as he moves from London theaters to French battlefields to Swiss hotel rooms, fighting to prevent suspicion and betrayal from consuming his existence.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, psychological-thriller, espionage
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vienna, London, France, Switzerland
Period: 1913, 1914
368 pages · Hardcover · Harper