Helen Dunmore delivers a deceptively simple masterpiece, a new take on the lives of the men and –particularly – the women caught up in the cold war … Exposure is magnificent

Dunmore packs an impressive amount on to a compact canvas. Full of convincing detail, the novel is as much about sexuality in the age of the Chatterley ban as about Whitehall skulduggery … A dramatic mix of domesticity and derring-do … Like many of the best spy novels, Exposure sets out to unsettle Britain’s view of itself.

Under its smooth, naturalistic surfaces, Exposure has a tightly wrought plot gripping as any thriller. But it is the union of this plot with complex, challenging characters that makes the book such a surprising and fulfilling read…will haunt you for months, if not years.

It is an intriguing set-up, and with Dunmore at its helm this tale of divided loyalties never lets up for a minute … Dunmore is such a class act … she sticks to the human essentials of her story, does not over-complicate things, and comes up trumps yet again.

Hers are expert hands at turning 20th-century history into gripping fiction.

Exposure succeeds as a Cold War thriller as well as a psychological drama. It deals with some lurid events, but evokes the texture of time … It offers in fact what Dunmore does best: a story of “desperate urgency, cloaked in the everyday”

One of our most outstanding writers, Helen Dunmore has drawn inspiration from the classic spy novel for her latest book ... While it has all the thrill and menace of a John Le Carré novel, Dunmore is more interested in the personal ... An atmospheric read full of vivid characters – if you only buy one book this month make it this one.

The danger with ‘literary thrillers’ is simple: the more literary a story is, the less thrilling it can be. There’s a balance to be found, and Dunmore expertly weights both sides. She revels in layers of concealment. Beautiful poetic phrases, quite startling at times, enliven the eye and the mind.

Helen Dunmore's subtle tale of espionage and fear has a refreshingly human scale… It is, in many ways, a romance where salvation comes through a late, unexpected and generous act of love.

Dunmore’s treatment is distinctive. Her work as both a poet and a novelist, is characterised by its rich sensuality and the stark emotional truths at its core. This sensibility, along with the small domestic and personal details at which she excels, transcend genre…

Exposure is the sort of winter read you hanker for…the period is so meticulously re-created that you almost hear the hiss of the gas streetlamps

An intricately observed and emotionally powerful Cold War thriller that combines subtlety and complexity to create a deeply satisfying and moving book

Dunmore is one of our best modern historical novelists and fans of her previous books will be eagerly awaiting this new one. [Exposure is] set during the Cold War and follows a woman determined to protect her family against the odds.

Dunmore is a very astute and skilful novelist… Exposure is as good as anything she has written; and that’s very good indeed

A novel about belonging, loneliness, love and the idea of home.... Exposure is a fine addition to the shelves of cold war literature

Dunmore has always been fantastic on the complexity of people's motivations and the secret reasons they act as they do. This book is no exception ... The textures of the times - the daily lighting of fires, the lumpen food and unwieldy domestic appliances - are drawn with poetic sensibility. It all adds up to a richly satisfying story ... a page turner ... it's as much a surprising love story as it is a tale of spies.

A gripping, subtle, emotional novel

This book is a triumph - a marvellous piece of seamless storytelling. The characters are so persuasive, as is the period flavour, while the plot is masterly - I kept thinking I could see where we were going next, and then we didn't. This is an imaginative new take on the Cold War thriller, so convincingly told and peopled that you surface from it surprised to be back in 2015.

Dunmore so cleverly interweaves each of the character's stories that as the tale unfolds it has the chilling ring of absolute authenticity. It’s gripping and page turning and all those things you expect in a Spy Drama - but always laced with her trademark humanity. I was totally caught up in the story which is paced perfectly. Her best book yet.

Her stories are fluid with a stylish and completely unpretentious skill, and Exposure is no exception … the characters are so superbly drawn.

Displays empathy for social period and how historical forces shape lives

From page one, the marvellous seamless, gimmick-free writing establishes the violent swerving from thankful calm to choking, icy wash of fear … This was my first encounter with the acclaimed Ms Dunmore and, within 24 hours of turning the last page, I had to rush to find another of her works.

Helen Dunmore returns with a book more twisting and layered than her previous, and yet is an intimate and compelling study of people, personalities and the secrets we hide from each other.

Pleasurable narrative and thoughtful prose

This subtle, off-kilter foray into John le Carré territory—a chilling, thoughtful, deeply romantic drama about the collateral damage suffered by those on the periphery of world events—displays Dunmore's gifts as one of today’s most elegant and versatile storytellers.

Exposure is a beautifully written novel that really showcases this author’s talents.

Exposure is a great spy thriller with an emotional side to it ... it gives you great character's and a beautiful setting. Lily Carrington is one of the best character's I have read about in a book in a long while.

A wonderfully descriptive tale of three rich characters and serves as a great way of bringing the private fears and realities of the Cold War period to life and this novel is a story of that time, as much as anything else.

Exposure is about the drive to protect one’s family and the devastating consequences of abruptly finding oneself on the wrong side.

Exposure is a brilliantly plotted novel, it’s enormously compelling and I gulped it down. Dunmore builds the tension slowly, the atmosphere of fear and creeping shadows is chillingly well done.

Just as thrilling and just as unputdownable as any Le Carré

A compelling read

A surprising and fulfilling read

Exciting, with a touch of Graham Greene

Few novelists can rival Dunmore

With a poet’s intensity for minutia and symbolism and an always hungry precision for the right word, she creates a real and thoroughly vivid world, a living place, grim and claustrophobic, full in small ways of menace.

Reading Helen Dunmore is like uncovering an old, intimate secret. Her historical detail is flawless. Her narrative focus is never so much on the big public bluster as it is on the private fragility of the human heart - and her latest novel might be her finest yet.

Clever and moving

[It is] gripping… The writing is brilliant.

A very dark, morbid tale… I loved it, because it’s a really original voice that draws you into a dark psychology.

A clever, eloquent and captivating debut novel.

[It is] thrillingly playful.

The most grimly compelling fiction came from a new voice: Ottessa Moshfegh’s Man Booker-shortlisted Eileen. It takes nerve to create such a thoroughly dislikeable narrator… It is like someone reaching into a bottomless bag of gifts.

I loved its refreshingly dark and complicated protagonist and grubbily vivid sense of time and place. Eileen reads like a smart, feminist take on Hitchcock or Highsmith and was, for that reason, impossible to put down.

[Eileenis] compulsively deviant and utterly delicious… I savoured every single word of it.