'A page-turning World War Two spy thriller, based on true events.
''We trade in secrets here, Evelyn. There's no shame in having a few of your own. Our only concern is for who might discover them.'
'Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.
'War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn's mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany.
'But befriending people to betray them isn't easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn's loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision.
'A powerfully insightful and luminous portrait of courage and loyalty, and the sacrifices made in their name.' (Publication summary)
'The strength of Rebecca Starford's debut novel lies in how it tackles the question of belonging.'
At Home with Rebecca Starford
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23450689
2021
single work
interview
'Rebecca Starford is publishing director of Kill Your Darlings magazine and author of acclaimed memoir Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School, which is currently in development with Matchbox Pictures for adaptation into a TV series. The Imitator, released in 2021, is her first novel.' (Production introduction)
'A secret agent is like a novelist – watching, constantly, but in a clandestine way so that associates don’t suspect the close observation and dissection of their lives. Similarly, a child sent to boarding school learns to watch and fit in, chameleon-like. It makes perfect sense that the author of a boarding school memoir – the wholly compelling Bad Behaviour – would next turn her attention to espionage. Spy work is absolute crack for novelists.' (Introduction)
'A secret agent is like a novelist – watching, constantly, but in a clandestine way so that associates don’t suspect the close observation and dissection of their lives. Similarly, a child sent to boarding school learns to watch and fit in, chameleon-like. It makes perfect sense that the author of a boarding school memoir – the wholly compelling Bad Behaviour – would next turn her attention to espionage. Spy work is absolute crack for novelists.' (Introduction)
'The strength of Rebecca Starford's debut novel lies in how it tackles the question of belonging.'
At Home with Rebecca Starford
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23450689
2021
single work
interview
'Rebecca Starford is publishing director of Kill Your Darlings magazine and author of acclaimed memoir Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School, which is currently in development with Matchbox Pictures for adaptation into a TV series. The Imitator, released in 2021, is her first novel.' (Production introduction)
