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Overview"Inspired by the true story of a female spy, this is ""an infectious page-turner, as crafty and nuanced and impassioned as any classic thriller"" (The National). Inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, unmasked as the KGB's longest-serving British spy in 1999, at age eighty-seven, Red Joan centers on the deeply conflicted life of a young physicist during the Second World War.Talented and impressionable, Cambridge undergraduate Joan Stanley befriends the worldly Sonya, whose daring history is at odds with Joan's provincial upbringing. Joan also feels a growing attraction toward Leo, Sonya's mysterious and charismatic cousin. Sonya and Leo, known communist sympathizers with ties to Russia and Germany, interpret wartime loyalty in ways Joan can only begin to fathom.As nations throughout the continent fall to fascism, Joan is enlisted into an urgent project that will change the course of the war--and the world--forever. Risking both career and conscience, leaking information to the Soviets while struggling to maintain her own semblance of morality, Joan is caught at a crossroads in which all paths lead to the same endgame: the deployment of the atomic bomb.Life during wartime, however, is often ambiguous, and when--decades later--MI5 agents appear at her doorstep, Joan must reaffirm the cost of the choices she made and face the cold truth: our deepest secrets have a way of dragging down those we love most. The basis of the film starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson, this is ""a brilliant spy novel, with [a] deft, involving plot . . . Tense, beautifully pitched, and very moving"" (Marie Claire)." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jennie RooneyPublisher: Europa Editions Imprint: Europa Editions Dimensions: Width: 13.50cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 20.60cm Weight: 0.499kg ISBN: 9781609452049ISBN 10: 1609452046 Pages: 390 Publication Date: 01 July 2014 Recommended Age: From 18 years Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In stock We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately. Table of ContentsReviewsRooney is a novelist at home with life's ambiguities, her plotting pleasingly intricate, her narrative richly textured. As the needle swings around her moral compass, her characters are contradictory, our sympathies for them similarly so. Even though I kept remembering the opening vignette, in which Joan is shown to be the sort of granny who steals geranium cuttings from her neighbour's garden, her realistic vulnerability won my affection. -- Telegraph (UK) An exciting and intelligent novel. . . . Rooney's re-creation of the politics of the day is brilliant. -- The Times Rooney has already shown herself to be a marvelous portrait artist of character in her previous two novels. . . . This is an infectious page-turner, as crafty and nuanced and impassioned as any classic thriller, but one that doesn't forget where its heart is . . . and is a case study in how to handle complex characters and motivations, keeping the reader on tenterhooks until the work's final moments. -- The National Praise for <i><b>Red Joan</b></i> A brilliant spy novel, with a deft, involving plot... tense, beautifully pitched and very moving. --<i>Marie Claire</i> Rooney's re-creation of the politics of the day is brilliant. --<i>The Times</i> <i>Red Joan</i>'s strength lies in the complex personal relationships that underpin the spying game... A powerfully written exploration of the far-reaching consequences that even the smallest-seeming actions can have. --<i>Literary Review</i> This is an infectious page-turner, as crafty and nuanced and impassioned as any classic thriller, but one that doesn't forget where its heart is. --<i>The National</i> A sensitive spy thriller, finely detailed and resolutley sensitive. This excellent period novel still carries some considerable resonance in the age of Bradley Manning. --<i>Metro</i> Rooney is a novelist at home with life's ambiguities, her plotting pleasingly intricate, her narrative richly textured. --<i>The Telegraph</i> Author InformationJennie Rooney was born in Liverpool in 1980. She studied history at the University of Cambridge and taught English in France before moving to London to work as an attorney. Her first novel, Inside the Whale, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |