** OK **
Light on detail,
Long on getting anywhere.
How awful to be thinking, when you know someone is going to get executed ... get on with it! But that's the way it was.
This was a quick, easy read and, while the writing had a strong poignant quality, I did not find enough depth to satisfy me. The story was told in flashback, jumping between Mata Hari in prison and Margaretha growing up. We are presented with a picture Margaretha : an abandoned girl, a young woman in a loveless marriage, an ingenue in the making BUT I never felt that the effort was made to present a picture of Mata Hari : exotic dancer, performer, courtesan, spy. That part of her life lacked vivacity and colour and she seemed always to be presented as rather pathetic and a bit of a bumpkin.
I love The Call by Yannick Murphy ... and thoroughly recommend it. It was the reason I went in search of other works by her.
