Untitled Elizabeth Speller

This is a novel about betrayal: the tiny betrayals that get us all through life, the wider moral betrayals, the treasonable betrayals and the ones that may end a life. Set in Berlin, in a particularly chilly period in the Cold War of the late 1960s, the story has at its heart a young woman, newly arrived in the city, married to a reserved British junior civil servant she has not known for long and trying to find her place in a tightly knit expatriate community. But Lucy is also longing for independence and in her efforts to follow her ideals and find her own life brings herself and others into danger. Is Lucy is, as she first appears, innocent, lonely, out of her depth, unaware of what she is putting at risk, or is there something else? And what about those close to her? Her sensible, rather old-fashioned husband, Peter, who married her so hastily? Her parents, living a reclusive life abroad? Her new and overwhelming Berlin social circle? Peter's colleagues? German civilians, some hostile some apparently helpful? It is soon clear that Lucy has brought secrets with her but are they her own or ones she is keeping for others? Berlin is a walled city recently ruined and still in the shadow of guilt and atrocity. In a society where almost everyone is playing a part, who can Lucy turn to when it seems that someone, or the city itself, is out to destroy her? And why is she there in the first place?