The Comfort of Strangers Paperback - 1997

Summary

First line

EACH AFTERNOON, when the whole city beyond the dark green shutters of their hotel windows began to stir, Colin and Mary were woken by the methodical chipping of steel tools against the iron barges which moored by the hotel cafe potoon.

Media reviews

"As the best young writer on this island, McEwan's evocations of feeling and place and his analysis of mood and relationship remain haunting and compelling."—The Times

"As always, McEwan manages his own idiom with remarkable grace and inventiveness; his characters are at home in their dreams, and so is he."—Guardian

"His writing is exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing."—The Times

"The Maestro."—New Statesman

"McEwan has—a style and a vision of life of his own...No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him."—John Fowles

"A sparkling and adventurous writer."—Dennis Potter

“Haunting and compelling.” –The Times

“McEwan, that master of the taciturn macabre, so organizes his narrative that, without insisting anything, every turn and glimpse is another tightening of the noose. The evils of power and the power of evil are transmitted with a steely coolness, and in a prose that has a feline grace.” –Observer