Gap in the Records

In a world where women are seen and not heard, women make excellent spies. Gathering information, attending functions or taking a simple holiday by the beach, these women are to be reckoned with. From Paraguay to Paris, from Hong Kong to Pine Gap, the women are watching and interfering. As intriguing and surprising as the mystery it describes, ''A Gap in the Records'' opens up a startling space where there was once familiar lines dividing spy stories from feminist fictions, lyricism from political thrillers, humour from literary theory. Here, in a work of rare formal beauty, a fascinating story is pursued across a contemporary landscape of scandal and paranoia, conspiracy and corruption -- and in the process, Jan McKemmish invents a new kind of fiction.