One bird, a spy, and more

The handsome young man on the right is Joseph Banks of Cook's first voyage. He is also a character of a lovely book by Martin Davies "The Conjuror's Bird". It is the story of a modern day search for the bird of Ulieta and the telling of how the bird ended up in Lincolnshire. The two parallel tales are nicely told. Lots of Scandinavian connections the Swedish student Katya, the Danish naturalist Fabricius. A very enjoyable read!
The spy is from William Boyd's "Restless". This book also goes back and forth between modern time and historical time. The setting is also England, for the most part; the historical time is the second world war; and the "heroine" is an unwed mother teaching English to engineers. I quite enjoyed this book too. Boyd is usually an interesting read.
My lovely library also provided me with George Pelecanos' latest book - "The Night Gardener" - another D.C. tale; click on the book's name and find a link to a review on Salon.
The library continues to be a wonderful source of what they do best - "loan books"!