The Choice

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The Choice

Category:	Fiction
Author:	Bryan Forbes CBE
Publisher:	Matador
Price:	£8.99
ISBN:	9781905886722
Pages:	272
Reviewed in issue:	8.99

This is a novel dealing with life in post-war West Germany, written by the director and novelist Bryan Forbes. The narrator of the story is British soldier Alex Seaton, who has survived the war and who now finds himself picking up the pieces in a country devastated by the Nazi regime. Much of the story involves Seaton’s relationship with a young German girl, Lisa, with a shadow hanging over their love.

This is a first-person story and the pacing never flags for a moment. There are gripping plot twists aplenty, and the author isn’t afraid to tackle the darker side of human nature. Forbes writes in an instantly accessible style, and throughout the book, everything – including the often complex relations between countries and the activities of the men working in Intelligence – is clearly explained in easily-readable prose. The novel is populated by a cast of entertaining supporting characters and the often colourful language flies off the page.

Dealing with spies, the Nuremberg trials, love, sex, the theatre and life back in England, The Choice is a real page-turner with plenty going on at all times. This certainly isn’t an uplifting book and, in dealing with concentration camps, poverty and death, it isn’t an easy read. Yet Forbes is writing a work of realism, so the downbeat nature of the story is entirely appropriate. My only complaint is the typographical errors – a little proof-reading goes a long way.

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