If there is anything the reading public knows, it is that underneath the calm gentility of suburban life boils a hellish soup of misdeeds and perversions. The rolling hills of Winesburg, Ohio and its cast of fresh-faced ne’er-do-wells are always within view. Michael Frayn, in Spies, has turned this tradition a bit on its head, for in this book, the transgressions are mostly imagined by a young boy named Stephen.[1] That is, until the truth is revealed, and we see the real and grown-up banalities of adultery, ill-chosen love, and cowardice.

The book is set amidst the blackout curtains of World-War-II England. Stephen has a friend named Keith, who is a class above him, goes to a better school, and therefore operates as the leader in their gang of two for most of the book. Keith voices the game that will initiate the story. Frayn’s cres- cendo approach to this utterance is so melodramatic that ...

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