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'To innocence. And to Anglo-German co-operation.'

This is what Leonard, a stuffy English engineer who has been sent to post-war, pre-wall Berlin to assist in an attempt to tap Soviet landlines, and Maria, a mysterious German divorcee who initiates him in the art of love, say to each other at their engagement party. Just a few pages later, they lose their innocence in the most gruesome fashion imaginable, after which Anglo-German co-operation takes a back seat and confusion and paranoia take over. What ensues is one of the most filmic and vivid descriptions of a descent into nightmare in all of English literature -- eighty pages of wall-to-wall gore, horror and fatigue-induced bad decisions and betrayals, all the way to the surprise ending. It is these eighty pages which elevate what could have been a dullish spy novel into an Ian McEwan masterpiece.

For make no mistake about it, The Innocent (first published in 1990) is a McEwan masterpiece. It may stand out in his oeuvre for being a spy novel (or at least an attempt at one), but it bears all the hallmarks of the McEwan classic: a dark and twisted love story, a sexual encounter with far-reaching consequences, tremendous psychological insight, great descriptive power and a powerful sense of impending doom. Right from the get-go, one has the sense that something is going to go horribly wrong, and when it finally does around page 130 or so, the effect is startling and spell-binding. Such is the hypnotic quality of the writing in the second half of the book that I stayed up late at night to be able to finish it despite some pretty hefty jet lag. I just had to know how the story ended, and I can't think of a greater compliment to an author than that.

As a spy novel, The Innocent may disappoint fans of the genre. While there is definitely some second-guessing of the characters' identities (Maria, for instance, remains a shady character right until the last few pages), the book doesn't feature any gadgets, spectacular chases or double crosses, or other things we have come to associate with the spy novel. And while the Berlin setting and the Cold War atmosphere are well drawn (at times the mood is reminiscent of The Third Man, which is a good thing in my book), the book is less about political games and intrigue than it is about first love, the joys and hardships of making love in a cold house, sexual awakening, obsession, possessiveness and jealousy. It's a tale of love found and lost, and of innocence lost and found again (to some extent), and as such it's quite brilliant -- up there with McEwan's more famous works. If it hadn't been for the somewhat slow start and the rather pat ending, I would have given it five stars.