Michael Frayn

After nine novels (and 13 plays) in his native Britain, Frayn finally garnered an American cult with Headlong, an engaging meditation on art, ambition, and the value of things cast in the form of a screwball caper story worthy of Charles Portis. His new novel, Spies, goes to quieter places. As an old man Stephen Wheatley returns to the street he grew up on, a place he hasn’t seen in 50 years, and tries to unravel a mystery from his wartime childhood. Was his best friend’s mother a German spy? There aren’t many surprises in the end, but it’s a rewarding book all the same, and one of the better coming of age stories anyone’s written in a long time. Nick Hornby, Martin Amis, and Will Self may get most of the ink reserved for Britguy novelists in American media, but Frayn and Jim Crace are the best of the bunch.