Sweet Tooth

Serena Frome; the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop; has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge; and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services. The year is 1972. Britain; confronting economic disaster; is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase; but the fight goes on; especially in the cultural sphere. Serena; a compulsive reader of novels; is sent on a secret mission' which brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley; a promising young writer. First she loves his stories; then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is inventing whom? To answer these questions; Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one. McEwan's mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue; love; and the invented self.