Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (2018) Knopf 

A post World War II story, covering the life of an English boy whose parents went to other parts of the world and left their teenage children in the care of strangers.  Even the leave-taking was a lie, the father leaving for Singapore, the mother staying until the children’s year in boarding schools could start.  Almost at once, the Moth, whom she left in charge, starts caring for them more like a father than a renter who agreed to watch over them when home.  Then they discover their mother’s traveling trunk in the basement and know she did not leave to meet-up with their father.  The Moth has a lot of friends over to their house in London and they get to know them by playing hooky and running around with the Darter, one of the friends, and getting jobs to earn money.  The boy even has an affair with a coworker, Agnes, from the restaurant where he works.  Halfway through the book, they are kidnapped, and the Moth is killed and their mother suddenly appears with the friends and sweeps the children off to her own ancestral home.  But even boarding them in far-away places fails to solve any problems and the son returns to live with her, learning nothing about when she was away and the daughter insisting on a school too far away for visiting.  Once the boy graduates college, he is recruited to work for the government, going through files to make sure nothing is left that would be incriminating to England.  There, he discovers traces of his mother as a spy for the government with enemies searching for her or her children.  The Moth, the Darter, others were watching over the children to keep them safe from foreign vengeance.  Finally, he finds the address of the Darter and visits the man, to discover he has married and has a 13 year old daughter.  On his way out, he sees a family photo, with the Darter and Agnes and a small girl and realizes that his kidnapping happened just over 13 years ago.  But he leaves the Darter in peace.