Slow burn espionage. Two worlds intersect adult and adolescent.
Author displays her excellent observation of human behavior, fantasies and anxieties. ( )

Neste inspirado romance, Ruth Rendell tece uma rede de ocorrências e personagens, oferecendo ao leitor uma trama cheia de nuances e imprevistos. No centro do enredo estão dois grupos de adolescentes para quem o mundo da espionagem significa o máximo da aventura. Utilizando mensagens em código e esconderijos secretos, os bandos rivais, compostos por colegiais ingleses, vão se envolvendo em investigações de pequenos casos que ocorrem em seu meio familiar e social. Enquanto isso, desenrola-se o drama de John Creevey, um homem simples, gerente de uma loja de plantas, que tempos atrás teve sua irmã assassinada e que acaba de perder a mulher para outro. Creevey intercepta uma mensagem cifrada e, sem saber com quem está lidando

I'm not really sure what I thought of this "two stories that eventually intersect" story. On the one hand I couldn't follow nor was interested in the schoolboy spies story. On the other I was interested in the "hopelessly wants to get back with his ex-wife" story and the very bizarre revelations that came with it. There was definitely a build up of tension once the stories intersected and I'm very glad that one of those stories didn't go the way it could have as that would have been very hard to read. At the end of it all I felt slightly dissatisfied though I can't articulate why. Maybe it's because of all the descriptive passages that don't really add anything to the story or its mood. ( )

I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14829516

A small group of private school boys are engaged in a spy game. It's fairly elaborate - there are two opposing groups, each with a leader and with "drop" locations, safe houses, and coded messages.

John Creevey, an adult suffering from his wife's departure, happens upon one of the drops and starts to copy the messages and try to decipher them. He becomes quite involved in the puzzle, and tries to figure out who the rival groups are. Street gangs? Drug lords? Actual spies?

John is obsessed, however, with getting wife Jennifer back. She has taken off with a former lover, boldly. This lover had left her almost at the altar yet she still wants him. John cannot understand it. He tries to find the key - what can he do to win her back?

Through an intersection of John's needs and the boys' spy game, something unexpected and unplanned happens. Was John too careless?

With Rendell you can never be sure of the outcome. She loves to develop complex characters whose motives may not be pure, or may just be muddied. This is a lovely representation of her brilliant mind. ( )

John Creevey has lost a lot in his life - his parents, his sister (murdered) and most recently his wife, who just left him to go back to the man she was going to marry until she was dumped at the last minute. He’s got his job running a gardening centre, a couple of casual friends and a hope that he can win his wife back, but mostly he’s just alone. When he stumbles across some coded messages sort of hidden in plain sight, he takes it as a sign that he should try to interpret them, wondering if they were from a violent gang, a drug ring, perhaps international spies - but the truth is far different than his imaginings, and the events he unknowingly sets into motion lead only to death….This is a stand-alone novel by Ruth Rendell from 1987, and as with all her work, the inner lives and psychological profiles of her characters are extremely well-drawn and very human. The plot is, also as always, quite involved and convoluted; the reader knows that something is going to happen, but not quite what it will be until nearly the end. I found the main characters to be really unappetizing, though, and so while I enjoyed her writing as much as I have ever done, this book left me somewhat angsty, a bit depressed. ( )