This is a fascinating book about childhood memories and adult secrets and how they all mesh together. From the beginning pages there is mystery and a hint of something that is not quite right going on. The reader is drawn into the plot as grown up Stephen Wheatley returns to the neighborhood he grew up in during WWII in London and begins to remember how he and his best friend began spying on his mother's mysterious behavior, convinced that she was a Nazi spy. The book is a compelling and extremely well written portrain of childhood innocence, adult deception and lifelong secrecy, and is a stunning example of the fact that it's a mistake to make assumptions about what we observe because often we have no idea about what's really going on.
