Despite their glaringly different writing styles, Ruth and Eva have something in common beyond blood — they have both responded to pain by closing down emotionally. It is Eva’s brother’s death that propels her into the world of espionage, and Ruth lives an emotionally stunted life in Oxford with her five-year-old son, born from a loveless relationship with a German anarchist. They both react to adversity with a similarly unconvincing toughness that belies their sadness. This provides an engaging tension between the narratives that both Ruth and Eva present and the truths that Boyd is hinting at. Their emotional lives are ambiguous, complex and ultimately hidden. Boyd’s sensitivity and great control only allow us to snatch glimpses of their feelings and motivations, as if he knows as little about them as they do about each other.

And this is his point, I think. Boyd, as a novelist who must make his own beloved characters speak and live convincingly, is hyper-aware of the fact that we do not truly know even our closest acquaintances. Restless illustrates this universal ignorance unflinchingly. But it also provides all the excitement and intrigue that one might expect from a spy novel. It is a noteworthy example of what can happen when literary novelists turn to genre fiction.

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