The Innocent

The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life -- and to lose his unwanted innocence. 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 bestselling author of more than ten books, including the novels<i> </i><b>The Comfort of Strangers</b><i> </i>and <b>Black Dogs</b><i>, </i>both shortlisted for the Booker Prize, <b>Amsterdam</b><i>, </i>winner of the Booker Prize,<i> </i>and <b>The Child in Time</b><i>, </i>winner of the Whitbread Award, as well as the story collections <b>First Love, Last Rites</b><i>, </i>winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and <b>In Between the Sheets</b><i>. </i>He has also written screenplays, plays, television scripts, a children’s book, and the libretto for an oratorio. He lives in London.