The Innocent

by McEwan, Ian | Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published 03/09/1998 by Vintage Publishing (Vintage) in the United Kingdom
Paperback | 240 pages
128 x 198 x 17mm | 196g

Into a Berlin wrenched between East and West, comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team.

Though only a pawn in an international plot, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life.

The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman.

It is a promise that 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.

'The plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense' Sunday Times