Word: golitsyn
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FICTION: The Annotated Snark, Martin Gardner∙The Country Between Us, Carolyn Forché The Dean's December, Saul Bellow A Flag for Sunrise, Robert Stone The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux The Villa Golitsyn, Piers Paul Read
FICTION: The Age of Wonders, Aharon Appelfeld ∙ The Dean's December, Saul Bellow ∙ A Flag for Sunrise, Robert Stone ∙ The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll ∙ Memoirs of a Space Traveler, Stanislaw Lent ∙ The Villa Golitsyn, Piers Paul Read
...when the officials need him most, up pops Simon Milson. He not only works for the Foreign Office, but he knew Ludley at school years earlier. Best of all, he has just received an unexpected invitation from Ludley's wife to visit them at their home, the Villa Golitsyn in Nice. After being briefed by a grateful supervisor, Milson eagerly sets out to trick his host into a confession...
After all this winding, the plot should tick toward the hour of denouement. Instead, The Villa Golitsyn keeps exploding. Its cloak-and-dagger trappings mask a quest that is much more serious and dangerous than the entrapment of a possible spy. Before his mission is completed, Milson is forced to test his own flexible, contemporary morals in a series of severe challenges. He becomes, however unwillingly, a student of Christian theology and then its potential victim. Near the end, he must save either himself or his conscience...
...ultimately resolve themselves into a morality play, with principle pitted against expediency. This deep struggle is just as engaging as the cat-and-mouse game between Milson and Ludley. Readers may choose to ignore the metaphysics and allow suspense alone to drive them forward through the book. The Villa Golitsyn can be read once for fun and a second time for enlightenment. Read's seven earlier novels received critical praise but not the commercial popularity of Alive (1974), his nonfiction account of a plane crash in the Andes and the ordeal of its survivors. This book may bring...