'What is a spy? Are they born, or are they made?' With these words, Vincent Austin analyses his future occupation. Some spies are made, he says, but his kind are born - since he is devoted to secrecy for its own sake. Vincent's boyhood in Tasmania is spent with an elderly aunt. His fascination with secrecy and espionage - and much else besides - is shared by Erica Lange, the daughter of a post-World War German immigrant. They see themselves as twin spirits, inhabiting a shared, platonic world of fantasy and ritual. At university, Vincent aims to enter Foreign Affairs - as does his easygoing friend Derek Bradley. However, Vincent is recruited by ASIS - Australia's overseas secret intelligence service. Erika - now an attractive and magnetic woman - becomes a journalist, eventually entering Foreign Affairs as a press officer. She, Vincent and Bradley meet again in 1982, when they are posted to the Australian Embassy in Beijing.Erika and Bradley begin an a affair which is ultimately doomed to fail, while Vincent attempts an espionage coup which ends in disaster for himself and Bradley. Both men are expelled from China, and are relocated to Canberra, where Vincent is confined to the ASIS Registry. Erika, also returning to Australia, becomes a successful television journalist. The fantasies of youth have now become a reality for Erica and Vincent, but they lead to a tragic climax. It is left to Bradley, who inherits Vincent's diaries, to contemplate their story. The events in this absorbing novel take place in the final phase of the Cold War, but they are highly relevant for today, and Christopher Koch's widely admired prose style gives them a contemporary freshness. The aims of "The Memory Room" go far beyond those of a thriller. A psychological portrait of a brilliant but eccentric spy, it is also an exploration of the mystical nature of secrecy.