He was my project, my case, my mission. His art, my work and our affair were one. If he failed, I failed. Simple then - we would flourish together. Ian McEwan's most recent novel seems interesting at first: it is the early 1970s, and Serena Frome is recruited by the British Security Service, the MI5. The Cold War is on, and Serena is assigned an undercover mission code-named "Sweet Tooth" to recruit a promising novelist to wage the war against Communism on a cultural and literary front. The idea is that the novelist receives a huge grant (although he doesn't know where it originally comes from), and in return he must simply write and publish fiction. How and when the MI5 plan to influence and take advantage of the resulting texts remains unclear... But after this promising, although slightly confusing, start, the story seems to get stuck where it is; it doesn't really go anywhere - at least not anywhere interesting. As you continue reading, you soon begin to...