Product Description

The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team.Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life - and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening - a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11470 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Mail on Sunday
‘The plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense’

London Review of Books
‘The sheer cleverness of the book is dazzling, and only fully to be appreciated as you turn the last page...'

Mail on Sunday
'The plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense'

Customer Reviews

Warning - don't read whilst eating
A spy story set in Berlin shortly after the end of the second world war - a romantic love story - a gruesome and revolting horror story (don't read whilst eating) - then the circle continues on back through spy to love story again. It was only after starting the book that I noticed another review recommended "don't read this as your first Ian McEwan". Probably wise advice; but I enjoyed it anyway and will certainly read more of his.

A cold, cold war
This is vintage McEwan. He describes the love affair with feeling and, I guess, from some experience. I liked the sharp contrast between the mechanics and bizarre logic of the Cold War and the unpredictability of human behaviour when it is allowed free reign. 50s Berlin is also beautifully evoked - Harry Lime's Vienna moved north. The novel has a neat and typically weird McEwan twist before its moving, sentimental denouement. Great reading - thoroughly recommended to fans and sceptics alike.

a must-read!
The first time I read this I had to put it down unfinished as I could not bear to discover the foreshadowed doom of the main character. It took me a year before I could gather the courage to start again and read the whole thing. Exaggerating? If you found Enduring Love moving, it's nothing compared to The Innocent!