He wasn't whole, he would never be whole, but, like the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of men before him who had returned from a war, he was getting on with his life by treating the past as if it barely existed. [loc. 217]
Before the war, Harry Flynn was a reporter; then, very briefly, a war reporter; and finally a POW working on the Burma Railway. In post-war London he drifts miserably, only vaguely aware of the planned Festival of Britain. One day he encounters his old boss in St James's Park, and is offered a job in the Festival Office, 'sopping up all the bits and pieces of Festival business that no else else cared to'. He shares his office with 'Badger', a.k.a. Mr Badgley, who doesn't talk about his war work; Evans, who survived shipwreck in the Arctic; and 'the Boy', who is 14, illiterate, working class, and a delight.
One night Flynn goes for a drink with a rather obnoxious Frenchwoman named Delphine Dubois. He wakes up the next morning with a black eye and a gap in his memory -- and Delphine has disappeared. Naturally, suspicion falls on Flynn. Even under suspicion of murder, though, he still has a job to do -- dealing with a celebrity cook and her nefarious husband, a stepdaughter and a dog, a Festival anthology of appalling poetry, and a plethora of plaster doves...
There is a lot of detail about the Festival here, but it's woven around a thriller about spies, double agents and fascists. As usual with Kate Atkinson, it's easy to get sidetracked by the asides, the characters, the setting: London in 1951 is a city still emerging from the horrors of war, and though the Festival is intended as a boost to morale and a taste of a peacetime future, there are plenty (including the Daily Express) who fulminate about the cost, the inherent classism, the London-centric nature of the main event. Plus ça change.
Flynn is somewhat naive but generally a good man: the novel is told, third-person, from his perspective, and the attentive reader will find significance where Flynn does not. This is a hopeful novel, despite its gentle mockery of British art and attitudes. I found Atkinson's afterword -- where, as well as describing her research, she sets out her reasons for not writing about Flynn's war -- interesting, too.
Read because: spotted it on Netgalley and was intrigued by the premise and setting: I generally enjoy Atkinson's novels, and this was no exception.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 10th September 2026.
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