Neighbouring Eyes

An elderly British academic, a History man, calls to mind the story of a Cold War secret told him in undergraduate days by his best friend, a student of English. Some Baltic communist leader, here on a state visit, has undergone abduction and a mortifying captivity while being impersonated. The historian now writes it all up as a novel, which proves to be something of an odyssey to the England of their youth. He plays the field of genres: spy story, memoir, historical fiction, comedy, satire, detective story, tragedy, idyll-appealing to the reader who knows English poetry but does not forget the Prisoner Of Zenda.