Point of View

The novel is told from the point of view of both Julie Beaufort-Stuart (in Part 1) and Maddie Brodatt (in Part 2). The use of point of view is one of the defining features of the narrative because it enables the mystery of Julie’s identity and motivations to continue throughout the novel.

In Part 1, although the story is told from Julie’s point of view, she reveals very little about her identity writing mostly about Maddie and referring to herself in the third person as Queenie. The account written in Part 1 is highly mediated: Julie knows that everything she writes in her account will be read by von Linden as well as being translated into German by Engel. This makes her an unreliable narrator because the stakes are so high: the consequences of her words could literally be life and death for herself and others. The...