Book description
The year is 1972, the Cold War is far from over and Serena Frome, in her final year at Cambridge, is being groomed for MI5. Sent on Operation Sweet Tooth - a highly secret undercover mission - she meets Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories,…
Why read it?
1 author picked Sweet Tooth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
From this novel’s opening lines—“My name is Serena Frome (rhymes with plume) and almost forty years ago I was sent on a secret mission for the British Security Service”—Ian McEwan draws readers into the dreary and yet ominous world of Cold War England, circa 1974.
The story purrs along like a well-oiled machine. Serena has an affair with an older man that ends badly, but not before her ex-lover sets her on an eventful career path with MI5.
Soon she’s recruited for an operation called “Sweet Tooth,” in which government channels funds are channeled to “acceptable” novelists so they can…
From Lee's list on the Cold War told in the first person.
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