Shining Through (novel)
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US first edition cover
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| Author | Susan Isaacs |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
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Publication date
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July 1, 1988 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 402 |
| ISBN | |
Shining Through is an American World War II novel by Susan Isaacs. It was published by HarperCollins in 1988. The book was made into a 1992 film of the same name, starring Michael Douglas as Edward Leland and Melanie Griffith as Linda Voss, though some of the plot and characters are changed in the adaptation.
In 1940, Linda Voss, 31 and unmarried, is secretary to John Berringer, a partner in a New York law firm. She is secretly in love with John, but he is married to Nan, the daughter of the senior partner Edward Leland, and politically and socially well-connected. She begins an affair with John after his wife leaves and sues for divorce. Linda becomes pregnant and they marry in a brief civil ceremony, which neither is really enthusiastic about. Leland moves to Washington to take a senior position in a new organisation, soon to be renamed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which coordinates war-related information from German refugees in America. He requests that John and Linda join him; because of Linda's fluent German, learnt from her Berlin-born grandmother, and her full FBI security clearance, Linda works directly with Ed. She is able to alert him that a translator is falsifying information from a number of informants. Ed travels a lot and Linda learns that he is going into Germany and German-occupied Poland. His main contact is "Sunflower", a rich German industrialist he has known since the 1920s and visits regularly in Germany and Switzerland. Sunflower also runs a number of agents. Linda has a miscarriage and loses the baby.
America enters the war. John is now in charge of counterespionage in Germany and France. At a meeting between the FBI and the OSS—a meeting charged with professional rivalry—Linda learns of Alfred Eckert, a dress designer popular with the wives of many high Nazi officials. He has been passing information since 1938, but is now dead, murdered by a person unknown. The circumstances are unclear and it is not known if his cover had been compromised, but he needs to be urgently replaced. Linda begins to imagine herself in his place. In Brooklyn, Linda’s mother—a long-time alcoholic—dies, and John accompanies her to the funeral. John is forced to return to work, but Linda stays on. Going through old papers clearly relating to her grandmother's time, she finds fragments of German-language newspapers, photographs of her grandmother’s Jewish cousins Hannah and Liesel Weiss, and a document in Hebrew. She takes some of the material home to Washington. Linda returns to find John and Nan in a passionate embrace. Nan confesses that she is dissatisfied with Quentin, her new husband, and John admits that he never stopped loving Nan. After angry and emotional scenes, Nan leaves to return to Quentin. Linda, although furious with John, allows him to stay.
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