Atonement by Ian McEwan; 2003. Softcover.

Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia s childhood friend. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives together with her precocious literary gifts brings about a crime that will change all their lives. Atonement follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.