The Night Watch

The novel opens in London in 1947, then steps back to 1944, when bombs fell night after night, and at last to 1941. Kay, who drove an ambulance through the bombing and lived at full tilt, now dresses in men's clothes and walks the streets restlessly. Helen, clever and much loved, works at a marriage bureau and hides a painful secret about her lover Julia, a writer of detective stories. Her colleague Viv stays stubbornly loyal to Reggie, a married soldier, and Viv's brother Duncan, who spent the war in prison, lives with an older man and is sought out by Fraser, his former cellmate. Moving backwards through blackouts, illicit affairs and acts of ordinary courage, the story shows how their lives became bound together.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

War, Love, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom, 1941–1947

First published

2006

Author's age

40 when first published

ISBN

9781594489051 (Riverhead Books, United States)

9781594482304 (Riverhead Books, United States)

9781844082469 (Virago, United Kingdom)

9781844082414 (Virago, United Kingdom)

More

Wikidata