| ‘Waiting for Sunrise’ by William Boyd | ||
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B Above Average (81%) | Summary of the Reviews: | |
| A well-crafted spy novel that’s apparently heavy on the sex, some reviewers complained that aspects of the story were clichéd and disjointed, but many praised the pacing and the interesting characters. | ||
| ISBN: 978-0061876769, Pages: 368 | ||
| Fiction | Mystery/Thriller | Literary Fiction | WWI | ||
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THE BOOK JACKET:
Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy for a troubling ailment of a sexual nature, becomes caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman. When she goes to the police to press charges of rape, however, he is stunned, and his few months of passion come to an abrupt end. Only a carefully plotted escape—with the help of two mysterious British diplomats—saves him from trial. But the frenzied getaway sets off a chain of events that steadily dismantles Lysander’s life as he knows it. He returns to a London on the cusp of war, hoping to win back his onetime fiancee and banish from memory his traumatic ordeals abroad, but Vienna haunts him at every turn. The men who helped coordinate his escape recruit him to carry out the brutal murder of a complete stranger. His lover from Vienna shows up nonchalantly at a party, ready to resume their liaison. Unable to live an ordinary existence, he is plunged into the dangerous theater of wartime intelligence—a world of sex, scandal, and spies, where lines of truth and deception blur with every waking day. Lysander must now discover the key to a secret code that is threatening Britain’s safety, and use all his skills to keep this murky world of suspicion and betrayal from invading every corner of his life. Moving from Vienna to London’s West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller, and a literary tour de force. |
THE REVIEWS:
| Liesl Schillinger – New York Times Sunday Book Review | |
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And yet, seductive as it is, “Waiting for Sunrise” is no bodice-ripper. It’s a brainteaser, charged with uncertainty and danger, electric with restraint. |
| Sam Sacks – Wall Street Journal | |
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Near the end of “Waiting for Sunrise” the hero says: “I understand a little of our modern world now.” It’s exasperating that there is so little in an otherwise enjoyable book to substantiate the claim. |
| Steven Poole – The Guardian | |
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Despite efforts to tie [parts of the story] together by means of recurring characters, the parts do not feel interdependent, and none is developed enough to be compelling on its own. |
| George Walden – The Observer | |
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What are we to make of it all? Not too much or too little. |
| William Boyd – Bookreporter | |
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[The author] succeeds on every level here and leaves us looking forward to more of his savvy, satisfying fiction. |
| Stephen Amidon – Washington Post | |
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“Waiting for Sunrise” might have the feel and pace of a thriller, but its ultimate focus is on the psychic damage inflicted on some of those who enter the permanent night of espionage. |
| Giles Blunt – The Globe and Mail | |
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The novelist who sets out to write a novel that is dreamlike, therefore, takes on a challenge fraught with risk. Unless that novelist is William Boyd. |
| Adrian Turpin – Literary Review | |
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Boyd has always known how to construct a plot. Waiting for Sunrise moves with suitably Swiss precision. |
| Nacy Wigston – The Star | |
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Happily, no one writes about the derailed life better than British novelist William Boyd |
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