WILLIAM BOYD Restless ****

This is a cracking thriller, with depth as well. It's everything 'Winter in Madrid' (see below) wanted to be and failed to achieve.

It's 1976 and Ruth's mother Sally (a.k.a. Eva, Eve, Margery and Mary) is worried someone wants to kill her - with good reason. During the war she was a British spy in Europe and then in America, where she was part of a team trying to plant stories that would make the USA want to join in the war.

In alternating chapters we have Ruth's story and that of her mother, and it's a gripping read.

My only gripe is that Sally's account of what happened is so brilliantly written she could have been a successful novelist.