Book Review - The Heat of the Day

I've been meaning to write this review for a while. I've been busy so I didn't get it done till today. The book is one of the ones I had to read for the college class I was taking this summer. It is supposed to be a combination Graham Greene spy thriller with some of the insight of Virginia Woolf. I didn't find it terribly suspenseful and I found the dialogue in the novel tedious and melodramatic. The basic story line is our heroine (Stella Rodney) finds out from a shadowy character named Harrison that the man she loves (Robert Kelway) may be a spy for the Germans (the novel is set in London during the Blitz). The novel attempts to show how Stella slowly finds out that the man she thought she knew wasn't that person at all. In my opinion, it does a poor job of it. It is only at the climax that we find out for sure that her lover is a spy for the German's. The two lovers have their heartbreaking scene before Stella helps Robert make an attempt to avoid the authorities (yawn). The attempt fails of sorts as Robert falls to his death. We are given the impression that Harrison may have something to do with this though he later denies it.

Overall, I found the novel really boring. I also found the dialogue tedious. The only good thing I can say about the novel is it does give a snapshot of how things were in London during the Blitz. I definitely wouldn't recommend this novel to anyone. If you want a good spy novel, I would suggest you read John LeCarre who wrote Tailor, Tinker, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. I remember seeing Smiley's People and I thought it was really good. I think you'll be more pleased with LeCarre than you will be with Bowen's The Heat of the Night.