A love affair through an interpreter,' said Raya. 'That's a very cultured prospect.'Raya is a mercurial Moscow blonde who speaks no English, and the affair she is embarking upon is with Gordon Proctor-Gould, a visiting British businessman who speaks no Russian. They need an interpreter; which is how Paul Manning is diverted from writing his thesis at Moscow university to become involved in all the deceptions of love and East-West relations.'Imaginative and delightful - zany characters who stick in the memory and have a genuine life of their own. Frayn juxtaposes the humorous and the frankly sinister into a satisfying and witty picture.' Sunday Telegraph'Frayn ... has been compared to Wodehouse, but here it is Waugh to the knife.' Guardian