This is the first Ben Macintyre book I’ve read and it certainly won’t be the last. It feels tricky trying to write a review of this book that does it justice. First of all I absolutely love true stories. This one is so remarkable, you would easily be mistaken to think it comes straight out of a pile of scripts for the next James Bond or something.
It tells the story of Ursula Kuczynski. It follows her journey across the world and through the ranks of the Soviet secret services. She becomes an empassionate communist after experiencing the fascist tides in Germany following the end of the first world war. This leads her to Agnes Smedley who recruits her while living in China. Her first assignments to aid the USSR was to help Richard Sorge (a soviet spy who was commemorated on stamps) with organising secret meetings for the communist underground in China in the early 1930s. He was described by Ian Flemming as “the most formidable spy in history” and shares many distinct personality traits with James Bond, in particular his womanising and taste for alcohol. He is the one who comes up with Ursula’s codename: agent Sonya.
Whilst agent Sonya would start as Richard Sorge’s “assistant”, over her career she would slowly rise up through the ranks and end up playing a pivotal role at the onset of the cold war, arguably ending up as a much more important spy in the footnotes of history.
Her travels would take her to New York, China, Japanese occupied China, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and the UK. Often having to balance the demands of a family with the demands of the job. She would end up having three children of three different men, each as equally different from the other (each of their individual stories just as remarkable). While in Switzerland she concocted a plan to blow up Hitler at his favourite Munich restaurant, the Osteria Bavaria. Unfortunately this plan would be called off by her supervisors after the treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the USSR was signed in August 1939.
After leaving Switzerland she would end up in Britain where she would build quite a remarkable web. This would include some German double agents working for the OSS (pre-curser of the CIA) on a daring mission into Germany. It would also include Klaus Fuchs, a physicist working on the atomic weapons program. To know the rest I’ll let you read the book.
It’s incredibly interesting to view this period of history through her story. It’s quite remarkable that she survived her job, especially under Stalin and the Great Purge. It’s the first Ben Macintyre book that I’ve read and it’s an absolute masterclass at retracing her story. I wholeheartedly agree with The Spectator that: “Macintyre… has the enviable gift, the inability to write a dull sentence”. I gave this book a 5/5 on Goodreads, I wish I could go higher (maybe I should be less generous with my ratings so that the truly great books stand out more). I absolutely recommend this book.
Sorry if this is a bit of a jumbled review (not wanting to spend too long on these things). I cannot recommend the book enough. If you would like to hear more about what I’ve been reading the below button should help you with that.