The Things that are Lost
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A Time to Tell Lies
In the morning of Tuesday November 10, 1942, near a small village ikup for a Special Operations Executive agent goes terribly wrong. Alex and Justine, agents with a life expectancy measured in weeks find themselves entangled in a desperate project they never fully understand. They are also lovers.
With fake news and disinformation making daily headlines, we can easily forget that neither activity is at all new. A Time to Tell Lies is a fictionalised account of two of the most daring disinformation projects of WWII - one German and one British. If the story told by Herman Giskes in 1953 is to be believed, he successfully deceived the Allies for many months and was responsible for the capture (and death) of many SOE agents in Holland. But should we believe his story? Perhaps the truth is even worse. While Giskes was at work, Operation Periwig was being planned by some of the most brilliant minds in universities in Britain – a project so secret that it is rarely mentioned even now. Henry Kissinger once remarked, “academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” Kennedy draws on his long immersion in that world to chronicle what can go wrong when everybody is telling lies. And also – because this is a love story – what can go wrong when love is not enough.
Set in the 1940s, the novel shifts between a fearful wartime London, nervously awaiting its inevitable invasion, and a fatally compromised France. Uncertain who to trust and trained to lie to their wartime masters and to the enemy, Alex and Justine must contemplate lying to each other. A Time to Tell Lies continues the story begun in Lucy, now reissued in a new edition.
Praise for Lucy
“A haunting and captivating love story set largely in occupied France in WWII, Lucy has both a deceptively simple narrative style and a skilfully articulated plot which holds the reader from start to finish. At its heart is the exploration of the young artist’s creative imagination as she struggles to come to terms with the banal horrors of war and her own engulfing emotions.”
Deborah Swallow, Märit Rausing Director, Courtauld Institute of Art.
“Lucy hooked me from page one - a precocious, headstrong yet ironical, young artist who comes to learn that the firestorms of WWII would spare neither the wise nor the foolish. Alan Kennedy's lyrically-told tale of love and war entertains as it transcends its genres.”
Umberto Tosi, author of “Ophelia Rising”.
"A lovely sense of place, as seen through a painter's eyes ... a thoughtful picture of the alienation of the artist ... a teasing, multi-layered narrative. What more could you want? I was utterly absorbed." The Bookbag.
More readers' reviews here.