The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan

The Spies of Shilling Lane introduces an unlikely heroine, fifty-year-old Mrs Braithwaite. Recently divorced, she’s alone and nobody likes her very much. She’s just too bossy and snooty – all of which means everyone’s happy to take her down a peg or two at the Ashcombe Women’s Voluntary Service.

With nothing to keep her at home, Mrs B heads to London to reconnect with her twenty-year-old daughter who abandoned the safety of the country for blitz-torn London. It’s 1941 and Mrs B is having doubts about what makes a successful life. She has written in her notebook that it’s something to do with social standing and how the world sees you, but she’s beginning to reconsider. Perhaps if she’d been a more sympathetic mother, she and Betty would be better friends.

Desperate to talk to Betty, Mrs B is disappointed when the timid, mousey landlord, Mr Norris, reveals that he hasn’t seen Betty for days, while nobody’s heard of her at the sewage works that supposedly employed her. Letters in Betty’s room reveal a secret life her mother could never have guessed at.

As bombs rain down by night, Mrs B and a reluctant Mr Norris become swept up in a plan to rescue Betty and to uncover goings on at a Nazi spy ring. While Mr Norris discovers an inner strength he didn’t know he possessed, Mrs B becomes a new person as well.

Jennifer Ryan (The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir) has returned to the wartime era and a new story of unlikely heroes and heroines, with a cast of quirky and original characters and a few plot twists along the way. While a gentle humour runs through the book, there’s also a strong emotional thread and the unwavering threat of invasion brings out the best and worst in everybody.

The Spies of Shilling Lane is a fun, light-hearted war story, if such a thing is possible, and leaves you wondering if Ryan might put the indomitable Mrs Braithwaite into a new adventure sometime soon. I hope so.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Spies of Shilling Lane