Restless

By: William Boyd

Narrated by: Rosamund Pike

Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

"I am Eva Delectorskaya," Sally Gilmartin announces, and so on a warm summer afternoon in 1976 her daughter, Ruth, learns that everything she ever knew about her mother was a carefully constructed lie. Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold village; Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone.

Three decades later the secrets of Sally's past still haunt her. Someone is trying to kill her and at last she has decided to trust Ruth with her story. Ruth, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of her own life as a young single mother with an unfinished graduate degree and escalating dependence on alcohol. She is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother's past—the mysterious death of Eva's beloved brother, her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward American involvement in the war, her dangerous romantic entanglement. Now Sally wants to find the man who recruited her for the secret service, and she needs Ruth's help. William Boyd's Restless is a brilliant espionage audiobook and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is listening at its finest.

©2006 William Boyd (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a divison of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Fiction, Unabridged, 2007

"This fascinating story is well told." (Publishers Weekly)
"[An] espionage thriller and domestic drama by one of the very best prose stylists and storytellers in the English language." (Atlantic Monthly)

The performance improves the story line

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This is a good WWII spy novel and with the story does fill in some gaps in the generally untold story of British propaganda efforts to bring in the U.S. The author does a nice job of building up the suspense in the adventures and interactions of the female protagonist.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Restless?

The scene of the duplicity in the Mexican affair and her escape was so vividly displayed as to make it "come alive", no pun intented.

Any additional comments?

The downside of the story is the failure to more fully explore the British propaganda machine. It seemed the author was conflicted over whether to tell that story or to tell the story of one woman romantic adventures with the war. The story leaned too much towards the latter and could have been more enriching had it explored the former in more detail.

Superb

This is one of the best-written and best-performed books available on audible.com. Boyd is a master of the English sentence. Here he's given us a subtle and intensely interesting set of intertwined tales of a mother and her daughter. Set in the WWII era and in 1976, the stories mirror each other and clash to reveal exquisite human truths.

Amazing book!

This book just appropriates you, just sucks you into its airless, menacing world. Would give it 5, if not for a bit dissapointing second storyline. Out of two plotlines, run in parallel - one around WW2 era, second in 1976 - I was completely captivated by the spy story, and felt like fast forwarding through some of the events of 1976. However, the spy story is completely captivating, on the par with Le Carre at his best - characters live life of deception, betrayal and cold calculation of one's every step - and that completely redeems relatively weak second story line. The narrator, Rosamund Pike, is superb - she wonderfully does many characters of many nationalities and accents without a trace of vocal histrionics, gives them flesh, so to speak, making them 3-dimensional. William Boyd's twist on the history of the US entering WW2 is also an added value to this amazing book. Great many thanks to Audible for this treat! Give us more Boyd! :-)

excellent

Compelling, well-told story. Excellent, entertaining narration. Just one weakness about the "revenge" philosophy of spying that the author missed: If you remain the thing you claimed to be fighting even after the spying is over, you're "common as houses," to use a phrase from the story, just another "Do as I say, not as I do" hypocrite who has become the very thing he/she claims to despise.

Best Spy Novel Ever

I absolutely love this book--which explains why I've listened to it twice now with complete satisfaction. The reader is also superb. What's unique is Boyd's female heroine, who is not only the center of the action, but is smarter, more fearless, and more insightful than her male counterparts in the novel. Expect to be charmed, fully engaged, and transported to another world and era.

Very informative and gripping

The story was thoroughly engaging. William Boyd brilliantly provided a sense of wartime and place with captivating characters. Rosamund Pike’s narration was excellent.

Difficult Listen

After reading the brilliant "Ordinary Thunderstorms" this book was a disappointment. The British narration is just too authentic, and I found the slurred words and dialects while probably "spot-on" amongst Anglophiles, were just annoying. But why not use the present day instead of the 1970's? I am not finished with the book so maybe the reason is something about the political situations at the time. But anyway, by setting the "present day" part of this novel in the 70's Boyd misses the layers of technology that have infused society since then, and that became major payers in "Ordinary Thunderstorms".

Then too, there is too much reliance on conversation for my taste. I read books to avoid conversation. Boyd's gift for geographical ambiance and narrative description are totally missing here. This book reads like bland pub fare: too much chatter, nourishing enough but with too many unfamiliar quirks that give a dissonant and unappealing flavor.

my first...

...and I wonder if it'll be the best. This was fabulous. The writing, the story, and the narration all were immensely enjoyable for my evening commutes and walks with the dog.

Remember Helen MacInness?

If so, you'll enjoy this cold war crossover spy historical. Yes, a complicated plot overlapping the life of a 1960's daughter with the hidden Cold War life of her mother. It presents an intriguing life into the lasting effects of being a spy. Female protagonists and delicious Cold War spy craft. Highly recommend.

Yes, more books by Boyd

Style, narrative, interrelationships, setting, and all the myriad details of espionage life - expertly packaged in this prize-winning book. Please make more of his novels available on Audible.com