The Innocent

Into a Berlin wrenched between East and West, comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed.

Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories,First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels includeThe Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award;The Cement Garden;Enduring Love;Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize;Atonement;Saturday;On Chesil Beach;Solar;Sweet Tooth;The Children Act; andNutshell, which was a Number One bestseller.AtonementandEnduring Lovehave both been turned into award-winning films,The Children ActandOn Chesil Beachare in production and set for release this year, and filming is currently underway for a BBC TV adaptation ofThe Child in Time.

'The plot crackles like thin ice with dread and suspense' Mail on Sunday