Ilium: A novel

Set in the dark world of international espionage, from London to Mallorca, Croatia, Paris, and Cap Ferret: the gripping and suspenseful story of a young woman who unwittingly becomes a perfect asset in the long overdue finale of a covert special op The young English narrator of Lea Carpenters dazzling new novel has grown up unhappily in London, dreaming of escape, pretending to be someone else and obsessed with a locked private garden. On the eve of her twenty-first birthday, at a party near that garden, she meets its charismatic and mysterious new owner, Marcus, thirty-three years older, who sweeps her off her feet. Before long they are married at his finca in Mallorca, and at last she has escaped into a new role but at what price? On their honeymoon in Croatia, Marcus reveals there is something she can do for hima plan is in place and she can help with a favor. This turns out to be posing as an art advisor to a family on Cap Ferret, where Marcus asks her to simply listen. A helicopter deposits her at a remote, highly guarded and lavishly appointed compound on a spit of land in the Atlantic. Its presided over by an enigmatic, charming patriarch Edouard, along with his wife Dasha, children Nikki and Felix, and populated by a revolving cast of other guestssome suspicious, some intriguing, perhaps none, like her, what they seem. Brilliantly compelling, this is a spellbinding and unexpectedly poignant story of a long- planned, high-stakes CIA-Mossad operation that only needed the right asset to complete.