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The Innocent: A Novel

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Leonard Marnham is assigned to a British-American surveillance team in Cold War Berlin. His intelligence work—tunneling under a Russian communications center to tap the phone lines to Moscow—offers him a welcome opportunity to begin shedding his own unwanted innocence, even if he is only a bit player in a grim international comedy of errors. Leonard's relationship with Maria Eckdorf, an enigmatic and beautiful West Berliner, likewise promises to loosen the bonds of his ordinary life. But the promise turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening—a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.




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    45 Reviews
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    32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
    4.0 out of 5 stars The thrill lies not where you expect, August 13, 2005
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    This review is from: The Innocent: A Novel (Paperback)
    McEwan creates well the atmosphere of a post-war, pre-wall Berlin, amplifying our imaginings. The interaction between Brits and Americans is full of subtle humor, and as it later turns out, great regard and humane understanding. The narrative is smooth and concerns an everyman, virgin, British geek assigned to an American intelligence project consisting of building a tunnel crossing the border into the Russian zone to tap underground phone cables through which presumably important matters are discussed (remember, we are in 1948, almost a decade before Sputnik). Love interest and sexual education is provided by an experienced German girl to our Brit, the virgin geek. The writing is so smooth that one doesn't realize one is turning pages and reading on at a rate as if one were reading a chock-full-of-events thriller when in fact not much is really happening; the tunnel is just chugging along. But McEwan is a "smooth operator" and he is moving you along, hinting at tension, to the point... Read more
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    17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
    4.0 out of 5 stars NOT your usual Ian McEwan book, June 18, 2004
    This review is from: The Innocent: A Novel (Paperback)
    This is a really unusual book, esp coming from a writer of Ian McEwan's stature. It's part psychological horror, part espionage, part mystery, part coming-of-age, part character study - and it's splendid.
    Set in 1954 in Berlin, before The Wall was built, it's the `true' story of the construction of a secret spy tunnel so the Brits and the Americans could spy on the Russians, whom they no longer trusted. Much to his surprise, Leonard Marnham, an extraordinarily innocent and na�ve British postal technician, is recruited to participate in this top-secret operation. A virgin at age 25, Leonard falls in love with a pretty German divorcee, and his initiation into the pleasures of a sexual relationship follows. The couples becomes engaged, but their world collapses into macabre horror on the night of their engagement party. The 80-plus pages that follow this horrific event are gruesome and spell-binding at the same time in a way that only a superb writer could possibly handle.
    The... Read more
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    11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
    5.0 out of 5 stars A startling and fascinating tale, June 14, 2005
    By 
    Michael Schau (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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    This review is from: The Innocent: A Novel (Paperback)
    The term "breath-taking" is one that book reviewers toss about with more ease than readers believe. but McEwan's post-war/thriller/romance can leave you breathless as it slips cannily from the everyday to the astonishing. People who could not imagine being caught up in webs of intrigue and deception find their lives turned topsy-turvy in most imaginative and startling ways. The more I read of the McEwan list the more I am amazed by his artistry, and variety of plot and characters. Every bit as fine a read as "Amsterdam" and "Atonement."
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