Berta Isla
Book description
A thrilling new literary offering from the acclaimed author of The Infatuations and A Heart So White
'For a while, she wasn't sure that her husband was her husband. Sometimes she thought he was, and sometimes not...'
Berta Isla and Tomas Nevinson meet in Madrid. They are both very young…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Berta Isla as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is a curious book. At one level it is an exploration of a marriage in Spain and a working career in Britain.
At another level it is a story about the covert life of a spy. It is all about secrecy, deception, and self-deception. After being pulled into the novel you start to question what is really going on, and you stay that way for much of the book.
Marcel Theroux writes: “Throughout the book, he enacts his characters’ various degrees of puzzlement in winding digressions about the mists and vapours that obscure our knowledge of each other and…
Javier Marías, who died recently, is a mesmerising writer. I lived in Spain for many years and have read most of his books. I recommend reading A Heart So White to start, but here, Berta Isla is perfect. This book introduces Tomás Nevinson, who is Anglo-Spanish. While studying at Oxford, he declines an offer to join MI6. He is then accused of murder—a ruse to oblige him to become an infiltrator. Now married to Berta in Madrid, he officially works for the embassy, but travels frequently on undercover missions, while Berta and their children find it difficult to accept his…
From Aly's list on how people become spies.
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