Glendinning (Electricity)
turns her cool, astringent eye and crisp prose to an engrossing story of ethical choices. Handsome and brilliant, Martagon Foley settled on a career as an engineer in London because it was "a way of making and doing not unlike the way of a creative artist, and not incompatible either with being a good person or making a good income"—aspirations that are sorely tested in this novel. In the 1980s, Martagon rose through the ranks at Cox and Co., an international firm of consulting engineers, under the eye of the chairman, Arthur Cox. Unfortunately, as the '90s advance, the firm's profits do not. Prodded by ambitious Giles Harper, Martagon manages a merger of Cox and Harper, against Arthur's wishes. Martagon then becomes an independent contractor, specializing in construction with glass. He's persuaded to consult on a Harper Cox project, designing the Bonplaisir airport in Provence, which is how he meets rich, ravishing Marina de Cabrières, whose family estate, the Château de Bonplaisir, is being converted into the airport hotel. Soon Marina and Martagon have a plan: Martagon will give up his work and live in sybaritic splendor with Marina, designing her house. However, winding up his affairs in London, Martagon somehow finds himself in bed with Julie, Giles's sister. While Julie is neither fashionable nor pretty, she does possess an irresistible gravitas. When Marina finds out, he faces a painful choice: should he abandon Julie to retain Marina? While Glendinning is better known as a literary biographer, she has certainly imbibed the lessons of the masters from her subjects (which have included Elizabeth Bowen and Rebecca West). In her capable hands, the love story once again displays its perennial vitality, but with a contemporary twist that provides a shattering finale. (July)
