Autumn in Oxford
Rosenberg’s second novel, (after The Girl from Krakow, 2015), is both a poignant love story and a suspenseful thriller, which guides a man and two women from England to the US in the 1940s and ´50s in an attempt to save the man’s life. In 1959, American Tom Wrought sees a man thrown beneath a London train. The man is Trevor Spencer, his lover’s husband and, although Tom had nothing to do with his death, he acts like a guilty man. Arrested by detectives already convinced of his culpability, Tom has to prove his innocence.
In flashbacks from 1937 until 1957, we learn Tom’s history. Everything is being used against him now: his long-ago involvement with the Communist Party; his influential and sometimes dubious friendships; the fellowship that brought him to Oxford; political essays he writes for publication anonymously; his work as a British spy; and the dark side of Liz Spencer, whom he loves but hardly knows. Tom, incarcerated, keeps a journal, searching for clues to jog his memory, while Liz and his attorney Alice Silverstone try to identify his enemies. When his journals are stolen from his cell, Tom knows someone powerful is trying to frame him for murder.
Reading Rosenberg is not a race; it’s steady progress through rough weather, with backtracks and flashbacks, and a “just the facts” style. Adjectives are reserved for landscapes and first introductions, which tell you everything you need to know, once. Sticking to what’s happening and who is saying what creates tension between the book and the reader—a need to know what’s coming next—and that makes a book suspenseful. Highly recommended to those who like complicated English mysteries.
