Page 18 - Phonebox Magazine July 2014

Book Review
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the interest and appeal of this book. Julia’s appalling mother and the absent partners of both Julia and Sylvester are, of course, a major component in the emotional impact of the story.
From Julia’s insensitive neighbours through to the dog, Joyful, other characters not only contribute to the plot but live and breathe in their own right. Particularly memorable are Rebecca, Sylvester’s interfering and bossy ex-secretary who wants to organise his life as she used to organise his office, and the obnoxious, obsessive Maurice Benson, who knows Julia’s background and tries to intimidate her.
The kindly and protective Patels, who seem to be the only people who really understand what has happened to Julia, are a quietly sane centre in a kaleidoscope of action and eccentricity.
This may be a story about dealing with loss, despair and desperation, but it is told with wit and understanding and doesn’t ignore the comic moments of release which life brings, even at the darkest times. Ultimately it is about the transforming and imaginative experience of love.
Sandra Metcalf
An Imaginative Experience, by Mary Wesley
Sylvester’s wife has left him and gone back to her first husband, and he is coping with the hurt and betrayal by focusing on
refurnishing his house in a simpler style. Part of the process means hiring a cleaner, which he does using the notice board in his local corner shop.
He never actually meets the person he hires as they exchange notes about practicalities, but she seems more than capable of delivering the fresh environment he so desperately needs.
Julia Piper’s life (never a very enviable one) has been turned upside down by tragedy. Fragile and still trying to find a way through her grief, she is not helped by the particularly nasty nuisance calls she receives. Kept going by her need to earn a living and helped by the Patels, her friends at the corner shop, she takes on Sylvester’s cleaning. Pleased
Thelma Shacklady
A Delicate Truth, by John le Carre
that she doesn’t have to deal with him in person, she feels something should be done with his sad, neglected garden and eventually leaves him a note about it. This creates an order of events that changes both their lives for the better.
Sylvester and Julia are surrounded by a cast of characters who are a large part of
An account of a top secret counter-terror operation based in Gibraltar (‘You’ll be quite safe provided you keep your feet on the rock’) is how le Carre opens his latest novel.
Sir Christopher Probyn, codename Paul, is drafted in as an observer.
He is chosen because he is classed as a low-flier (as opposed to a high-flier) and is therefore expendable should things go wrong. The operation is bungled, and Sir Christopher is whisked off to a diplomatic post in the Caribbean before retiring with his wife to Cornwall three years later.
We are then treated to a glimpse of what led up to the operation; how Toby Bell, Private Secretary to the Foreign Office Minister, is dimly aware of his boss’s involvement in a matter so secret he is not privy to it, and how he takes steps to discover what is going on. He keeps his discovery to himself but three years later he is summoned to a decaying Cornish manor house to learn that he is not the only person who wants to learn the truth.
This is classic le Carre, transferring his attention from MI5 to the Foreign Office, with the infighting and wheeler-dealing as acute as in his previous novels. As the plot unfolds, it is clear that no-one is innocent and Toby’s desire to uncover the truth and bring the guilty to justice brings him up against powerful opponents. There are so many twists and turns, it holds the reader’s attention to the very last page.
If you are looking for a good holiday read, I recommend this novel, not only for the plot but for the skilful writing, as well as the exposition of a quotation from Oscar Wilde on the frontispiece:
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
18 Phonebox Magazine