Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet

You hear a lot these days that YA books are flying off the shelves and they are, but what a lot of people fail to realize is that a huge number of adults are reading YA. Apparently many grownups have become frustrated with adult fiction and just want "a good story," something that keeps the pages turning and wraps up nicely at the end. That's not to say that it has to be simple. It can be well-written, intellectually and emotionally satisfying, challenging, creative, descriptive, effective, powerful and still appeal to both YAs and adults. Tamar is one of those novels.

The odd thing about Tamar (and possibly a selling point for adults) is that most of the book is not written from a teenage point of view. William Hyde, a former WWII British undercover operative in Holland, has apparently committed suicide in 1995, fifty years after the end of the war. Before his death, he leaves a box for his 15-year-old granddaughter Tamar (also Hyde's code name in WWII). Inside, Tamar finds maps, coded messages, photos and other seemingly unrelated objects from her grandfather's past. Slowly she begins to unravel the mystery of why her grandfather, a war hero who helped liberate Holland from the Nazis, would kill himself.

Again, most of the book is told from the point of view of either Hyde or his partner Dart (both not much older than young adults themselves) as they parachute into Holland and work undercover, trying to send messages to the Allies while avoiding detection by the Nazis. Peet does a masterful job of linking the past with the present without falling into the traps and cliches of a multitude of wartime novels. The writing is fresh, the details vivid and the characters multi-dimensional. Highly recommended for YA and adults.