Overview

A tense thriller of suspicion, betrayal and espionage set in wartime London It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

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9780099276463

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Reviews

This world reminds you of both Henry James and Graham Greene...a world both placid and violently fractured...Bowen's prose is crisp and precise, but also suggestive and haunting...She combines moral refinement and pitiless but compasionate understanding * Sunday Times * Marvellously witty, poetic and socially perceptive novels... she is bang on form with The Heat of the Day -- John Bayley * Independent * A tensely charged story of betrayal * Independent * One of three quintessential London 'war' novels, the others being Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. No other novel conjures the spooky solemnity of the Blitz so adroitly * Time Out * Probably the most intelligent noir ever written...The situation is surreal, the psychologizing profound, and the eerie inwardness trapped in Bowen's distinctive prose resonates inside a peculiar silence that fills the reader's heart with dread * Los Angeles Times *

In the face of its selection by the Literary Guild, of the regretted rarity and unusual literary quality of Elizabeth Bowen's novels, this is nonetheless a disappointment. For if prevailing still are the subtleties of response and reaction, the awareness of the shaded- the shadowed in human interchange, which distinguishes all she has written, this- as a novel- lacks a precision of purpose, remains tenuous in its intention and accomplishment. England, during the war, frames the story of Stella Rodney and Robert Kelway, Stella a divorcee in her early forties of considerable attractiveness and ease, Robert, one of the wounded of Dunkirk. To this love affair of two years' standing and intense felicity comes the first break when Stella- through another man- learns that Robert is a traitor to England. Unwilling to accept this, she faces the many fears and doubts which precede her acknowledgment to Robert of his defection, to his final admission to Stella of his betrayal and the confused ideological motivation behind it, and to his death... Elizabeth Bowen has a highly appreciative audience- to which the book club selection will add impetus- though this- for that audience- cannot compare with The Death of the Heart or The House in Paris. (Kirkus Reviews)

On a September day in 1942, Stella, attractive, desirable, but dogged by the failure of a early marriage, learns that her lover, Robert, may be a spy. Himself a casualty of Dunkirk. Robert is being shadowed by Harrison, a man who on his own admission has never been loved. Three people: each in their own way prevented from commitment to the future by the uncertainty of a fractured present. So the sinister Harrison may be prepared to bargain for Robert's freedom but is Stella willing to pay his price? An insidiously penetrating investigation into the obscure motives that dictate human behaviour, this haunting story speaks of the author's debt to Henry James. Yet much of its source deriving directly from her own experience - she began it while the bombs were still falling in 1944. Written with cool lyricism, the envy of many a contemporary writer and immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece when published in 1949, it is one of the finest novels of the last century finding relevance beyond its time not the least for its extraordinary powerful evocation of wartime London. (Kirkus UK)

Probably the most intelligent noir ever written...The situation is surreal, the psychologizing profound, and the eerie inwardness trapped in Bowen's distinctive prose resonates inside a peculiar silence that fills the reader's heart with dread Los Angeles Times One of three quintessential London 'war' novels, the others being Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. No other novel conjures the spooky solemnity of the Blitz so adroitly Time Out A tensely charged story of betrayal Independent Marvellously witty, poetic and socially perceptive novels... she is bang on form with The Heat of the Day -- John Bayley Independent This world reminds you of both Henry James and Graham Greene...a world both placid and violently fractured...Bowen's prose is crisp and precise, but also suggestive and haunting...She combines moral refinement and pitiless but compasionate understanding Sunday Times

Probably the most intelligent noir ever written...The situation is surreal, the psychologizing profound, and the eerie inwardness trapped in Bowen's distinctive prose resonates inside a peculiar silence that fills the reader's heart with dread * Los Angeles Times * One of three quintessential London 'war' novels, the others being Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. No other novel conjures the spooky solemnity of the Blitz so adroitly * Time Out * A tensely charged story of betrayal * Independent * Marvellously witty, poetic and socially perceptive novels... she is bang on form with The Heat of the Day -- John Bayley * Independent * This world reminds you of both Henry James and Graham Greene...a world both placid and violently fractured...Bowen's prose is crisp and precise, but also suggestive and haunting...She combines moral refinement and pitiless but compasionate understanding * Sunday Times *

Author Information

Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She travelled a great deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, the family house in County Cork which she inherited. Her first book, a collection of shorts stories, Encounters, was published in 1923. The Hotel (1926) was her first novel. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.

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