"On 1 May 1924, a Berlin policeman smashed his rubber truncheon into the back of a sixteen-year-old-girl, and helped to forge a revolutionary.
For several hours, thousands of Berliners had been trooping through the city streets in the May Day parade, the annual celebration of the working classes. Their number included many communists, and a large youth delegation...
At the head of the communist youth group marched a slim girl wearing a worker's cap, two weeks short of her seventeenth birthday. This was Ursula Kuczynski's first street demonstration, and her eyes shone with excitement as she waved her placard and belted out the anthem...'Rise up, rise up for the struggle'... As she strode along and sang, Ursula performed a little dance of pure joy."
In a quiet English village in 1942, an elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted wife and mother-of-three, the woman known to her neighbours as Mrs Burton seemed to epitomize rural British domesticity.
However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, she was racing through the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific intelligence from one of the country's most brilliant nuclear physicists. Secrets that she would transmit to Soviet intelligence headquarters via the radio transmitter she was hiding in her outdoor privy.
Far from a British housewife, Mrs Burton - born Ursula Kuczynski, and codenamed 'Sonya' - was a German Jew, a dedicated communist, a colonel in Russia's Red Army, and a highly trained spy. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria and helping the Soviet Union build the atom bomb, Sonya conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Her story has never been told - until now.
Agent Sonya is the exhilarating account of one woman's life; a life that encompasses the rise and fall of communism itself, and altered the course of history.
***
This was a very accessible work of non-fiction. I found it very easy to read and I was quickly caught up in Ursula/Sonya's fascinating story. In fact, I eagerly read the whole book in three days as I was so gripped by the story.
The author did a great job in presenting her in her dual role as both spy and mother. From an early point I did wonder how she could perform both satisfactorily. Earlier in the book she says that she would like to have four children who were like Michael, who was her first child. At that specific point I was very puzzled by the incongruity of those two roles. However, in the latter part of the book, it becomes clear that it was her position as a mother that permitted her to hide behind that very domesticity.
She was a remarkable woman who was an effective, successful and high ranking Soviet spy over a period that spanned decades. I did not find her particularly likeable but I was fascinated by her and had to admire her determination to do what she believed was right.
Many people crossed her path over the years and, at times, I felt a little at a loss in remembering who was who. However, there are several photographs included in the book which allowed me to put a face to the names which aided this significantly. I think this is a book that benefits from being read in the physical format as being able to flick backwards and forwards to look at the photos and maps was extremely useful.
Mr Macintyre has clearly done extensive research for this book and he has presented these facts in a chronological and ordered way. It is intelligently written with skill and judgement and the author has ultimately presented readers with an excellent book which I highly recommend.
ISBN: 978 0241408506
Publisher: Penguin
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends, SAS and The Spy and the Traitor.
He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. He regularly presents BBC series based on his acclaimed books.
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