Espionage: English specialty?

As a backdrop to life on the watch, the period 1940-1942 during which the English wanted to persuade the United States to enter the war against Germany. To do this all was good, including the manipulation of information through spies.
But the spies whose issue here has nothing to do with those movies, they are just ordinary people and when in the 70s, Sally reveals to his daughter the role it once played, the -C does not take seriously at first.
What follows is a narrative alternating past and present, the girl gradually discovering his mother at an angle entirely surprising. But do we really those around us? , This is also the question asked William Boyd in this exciting love story, betrayal and manipulation.