Got in the post from a UK bookmoocher. Well, he had two to send out and got the addresses on the wrong books, so myself and the other recipient had to send the books to each other, but we get there eventually!

Really engrossing thriller, not just the spy mystery part, but also about life. I found those parts particularly poignant, the life, birth, death and the not-life. Also the questions of how well do you know your parents, how much of their past do they actually owe you (thinking of how Joan's son, Nick reacts to a lot of the revelations about her youth) and the reasons for people doing seemingly "terrible" things.

Joan goes to Cambridge university in the the 1930s to get a science degree (well, certificate, as women couldn't get degrees then) and whilst there she gets to know Sonya, a Russian who has been living in the UK for years having fled the motherland. Her cousin, Leo is also there, having fled Russia to Germany, then leaving Germany in disgust at the growth of facism. He is now an idealist communist, earnest and unable to see anything bad about the mother country or Stalin's regime. The three spend a lot of time together, then when Joan leaves the uni, the second world war starts and she gets a job at a science lab. She's hired for her studies, and yet, as the lady in the building, her job is making the tea, filing and being a PA for the scientist in charge of department. These are the good old days when women are really underestimated, undervalued and patronised. And in such a position, they can potentially make the best spies.

This tale actually starts off when Joan is in her 80s and MI5 have just realised that she may have been heavily involved in espionage. They've got a week to get the story out of her, before her name is to be given to the House of Commons. So it flicks between the treatment of this old, suspected spy, and her story working through going to university to whether she did or didn't turn to spying (you'll have to read it to find out), as well as her son, a lawyer, and his reactions to the accusations and realisation that he doesn't know everything about his mother. There is sadness in here, especially chronologically at the end of her life, yet because the story flicks between now and the 30s and 40s, the book actually ends in a really positive place for her, looking forward to the future and hopefully some proper happiness. Even though there's a bittersweet feel as we do know how it's all going to work out.

Passing on to a book addict in a nice bag of fab books via freebie offer on facebook.