Restless by William Boyd

Strange book indeed. And not necessarily strange in a good way. But it is about the young woman/old woman Eva Delectorskaya/Sally Gilmartin and her daughter Ruth Gilmartin. Eva/Sally was a British spy during the Second World War, taught and trained by the enigmatic Lucas Romer, with whom she also has a steaming love affair, mainly during their stay in America in the beginning of the 1940'es, before Pearl Habor. The story moves back and forth between Eva's spying-days in the 1940'es and the present day, which in this book is the 1970'es. Eva/Sally, the former master-spy, has become and older lady, and some things which happened during the war is still gnawing at her soul. She manipulates her twenty-something daughter Ruth to dig a little in the story and the history, without telling Ruth exactly what it is she wants her to find. Very slowly the story unfolds, and I had a hard time following. Maybe because I am definitely not an expert in neither the Second World War nor spying and spies. I discovered that the author comes highly acclaimed and has written several works. It took me months to finish Restless, but it wasn't exactly a bad book, and it wasn't exactly boring. I just didn't get half of it, and had to read other books in between. The writing style and the character-development is excellent, but there are definitely som loose ends, which has nothing to do with understanding the book or not. I do not know if I should recommend this book or not.