Customer Reviews

The Spy's Wife

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was so much richer than I expected! I'm a big fan of the Pascoe and Dalziel series, which is also by Reginald Hill, and I really loved "Death in the Garden," which was also published by Felony & Mayhem Press. Since this book was by an author I knew I liked, and came from a publisher that had published I book I loved, I thought I'd take a chance. I am SO glad I did!

One of the oldest rules of writing is that you should start a scene at the last possible moment - you don't want to waste readers' time slogging through background stuff that isn't critical to the scene at hand. This is a lesson that Reginald Hill knows very well; the first scene of this book starts about ten minutes before A) Molly's husband rushes home from work in the middle of the day and disappears, and B) two men show up and tell her that her husband is a Russian (Soviet) spy. Suddenly, everything in Molly's life is turned upside down. It's as though she's been thrown out of an airplane and is in freefall. There are plenty of people - the British secret service, the Soviets, the press - who are happy to offer a parachute and say "Here, let me guide you to MY IDEA of a good landing." But the book is about Molly's finding her own wind-currents, finding her OWN way to HER idea of a safe landing. In that way, it has a lot in common with the wonderful "Death in the Garden," and it makes perfect sense that the same publisher is responsible for both of these good books.

This isn't to say that "The Spy's Wife" is just about a woman's emotional development: There is plenty of fast-paced plot, and plenty of hurdles for Molly to get over and mazes that she has to find a way out of. I loved this book.

I just rebought and reread this book and enjoyed it even more the second time in some years. Reginald Hill is a fine writer and this is great English suspense as opposed to the other mystery's blood and gore.

"The Spy's Wife" is ostensibly a mystery story, but it turns out to be more of a character study--with the subject of the title front and center throughout. This turns the piece into something more than a typical Cold War espionage potboiler. The novel's focus is on Molly Keatley, the badly betrayed wife of an alleged British turncoat, who evolves from a relatively passive soul at the moment of her betrayal into an angry, anything-but-passive woman by the end of the book. The story moves to a surprising and highly creative ending.
There is much humor and wisdom in this very enjoyable book. Highly recommended.

Hill got me immediately into the head of Molly, and I stayed there for the three days it took me to read this book. From complacent housewife to liberated woman, but always the spy's wife, Molly is a pleasure. When confronted with her journalist husband's treachery, she falls apart, goes into denial but not completely. There's a down-to-earth, unflappable even unemotional North English core that copes in the face of adversity. She goes home to her parents, but that isn't what it seems, either. She confronts, accepts, rejects, abandons her ex-fiance and stands in for her mother while her mother and father confront the mother's life-threatening illness. All at the same time, she's watched and even hounded by a British Secret Service agent whom she comes to respect, if not love. Molly is her mother's daughter, and her forcefulness and her resolution come through as she is confronted again and again with her husband's betrayals, both personal and political.

While Molly's story is wonderful, there is a glitch. The obnoxious reporter and the American woman don't quite ring true. They seem to have no other purpose than to goad Molly--and they do that--but, as characters, they appear flat. They lack believable motivation, and they created annoyance, not tension. Beyond this weakness, however, the book is an excellent, enjoyable read, and Molly has resonance even after the finish.

I can't believe it has taken me this long to discover Reginald Hill! Fans of British mystery will love this suspenseful tale. Meticulously plotted, beautifully written, wonderful characters...a really terrific book.

Molly is the most surprised of anyone to find that her husband is suspected of being a spy. As she, and the government's investigator, discover, there is far more going on than meets the eye. Another reviewer mentions that this is a character study, and it is, sort of...but so well done, with facts and suspicions unraveled in a so cohesive and engaging way that the reader does not easily guess the next step. Molly doubts her marriage, herself and her ability to interpret the world --as though the image in the mirror shakes and wavers, only to find that the reflection contains more depth than originally imagined. I, too, love the Daizel(sp?) and Pascoe mystery series. I was ready to suspect that Reginald Hill would fall on his face outside of his series (as Peter Lovesey does outside of the Diamond series). Not so. Hill is skilled, sensitive to character, never forgets plot and draws his reader along with clues and sidebars that make any mystery more than a puzzle. All of his books are character driven, and this one more than most. The denouement is a bit predictable, but the process of getting there completely enjoyable. While some of Hill's books suit more than others, none of them disappoint more than a star's worth (on Amazon's scale). So far, all of Hill's work that I have read have been worth the read.

I'm a huge fan of the Dalziel & Pascoe series, so this just didn't do it for me. But it was light and fun and very surprising at the end! And, as always, wonderfully written---he is such a great writer! I did enjoy it---just not overmuch.

I picked up an old book at our library book sale because of the title, The Spy's Wife - I had not yet discovered Reginald Hill's books. I opened the book thinking it was probably going to be old-fashioned and boring, but was sucked in from the first page, and couldn't put it down. Hill's clarity of writing, his ability to get me into the world and mind of the characters took my breath away. After I finished the book, I immediately starting reading all of Hill's book. I must say that The Spy's Wife was one of his best written books, even though you can see his skill mature over the years as you read his other books. If you are a Reginald Hill fan, read this one too.

I did start this thinking that it wold be a slighter book than I'm used to from the author. efinitely not so. It is, as others have pointed out, more of a character study than an espionage thriller. However, it still shows the expected sardonic humor Reginald Hill uses to great advantage, and it does center n the title character's growing maturity as she reacts to the sudden knowledge that the man she married led a life she never suspected.

I'm a big fan of Reginald Hill's award winning detective series featuring Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe. When I noticed that "The Spy's Wife", one of Hill's stand-alone mysteries, was nominated for an Edgar Award, I put it at the top of my reading list and I was not disappointed.

On the surface, "The Spy's Wife" is a cold war espionage novel, but it does not have the usual suspense that you'd expect to find in a spy story. Instead, it's really a story about how someone deals with an impossible situation. Molly Keatley has been married to Sam, a technical journalist, for ten years. One morning while she is washing the breakfast dishes, Sam, who has left for the day, unexpectedly returns and runs upstairs to quickly pack his suitcase. As he rushes off, he tells Molly, "I'm sorry. I'll get in touch. I love you." Shortly after, a man who comes looking for Sam informs Molly that her husband is a Soviet spy who is defecting to Russia. As the story unfolds, Molly also finds out that there are a lot of other things that Sam never told her.

Hill gives us lots of interesting characters. There's Molly, who doesn't know if she still loves Sam, but is determined not to sell him out. There's the British intelligence agent who treats her kindly and always calls her "missus." A serious distraction is Molly's mother, who's facing a major operation. Molly's ex-finance still wants to marry her even though he already has a wife, two children and one more on the way. Then there's Wallace, a journalist, who's trying to find Sam so that he can get Sam's story. Finally, there's Sally Ann Hibert, Wallace's companion and Sam's former mistress, who has her own motives for being mixed up in the chase.

This book will keep you turning the pages, laughing at the witty dialog and admiring Reginald Hill's clever plot twists. Highly recommended.