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The Undertaking cover

The Undertaking

Audrey Magee

The Undertaking

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The Undertaking was a finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Set during World War II amid the trenches of the eastern front and the turmoil of Berlin under the Third Reich, The Undertaking intertwines the lives of two German strangers entering into a proxy marriage of convenience, self-interest, and of ideology. Peter Faber is a soldier desperate to escape the madness of war if only by a three-week honeymoon leave. His new wife is Katharine Spinell, a resourceful young woman from Berlin who anticipates the likelihood of a widow's pension should Peter die in battle. When they finally meet there is an attraction as unexpected as it is intense. But as Peter returns to Stalingrad, and as Katherine ruthlessly works her way into Nazi high society, the tides of war change. So do Peter and Katharine's fates and fortunes.

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Publisher
Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Year
2014
ISBN-13
9780802192615
Genre
FictionCrime & Thriller
Topics
War and its consequencesMarriage of convenienceNazi Germany and moral corruption

Awards

Other awarded books from Audrey Magee